


Your Story Isn't Over Yet

by jscribbles



Series: The Gracie Verse [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: A Destiel Story from Sam's POV, Angst, Blood, Canon Divergent, F/M, Grief, Happy Ending, M/M, Mentions of morning sickness, Nephilim, S9, Sex swap, Temporary Character Death, baby type things happen, canon-divergent, castiel has some massive mood swings and isn't taking anyone's bullshit, castiel's vessel transforms into a female, characters deal with death, grace baby, human!Cas, implications of losing a baby, m/f soft smut, male!Cas, more like m-conception really instead of mpreg but yanno, mpreg but not really, pregnant!female!Cas, s8, s8/s9, temporary major character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-06
Updated: 2018-11-28
Packaged: 2019-08-19 15:18:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 18
Words: 75,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16537109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jscribbles/pseuds/jscribbles
Summary: One morning, Castiel wakes up suddenly very lady-shaped, and Team Free Will discover that a nephilim grows inside him. Sam has no idea how this could have happened considering Cas was supposed to be human, and Dean seems uninterested in finding out how or why their friend is pregnant and female - but he seems goddamn excited. Castiel retreats into himself, seemingly more depressed than usual.Sam is determined to get to the bottom of this mystery, though the others seem reluctant to discover the origin of the nephilim. Could the answer be right under his nose?





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to my fic! This was a fun little weird thing I wanted to write because I needed a break from the heavy angst and horror that was my DCBB2018. This fic started out as a fluffy little idea and just turned into another long, angsty fic full of emotion. xD I can't be trusted to write anything short or anything fluffy that doesn't come with a side of pain and tears. Whoops.
> 
> Please heed the warnings, because the fic gets dark as it goes on. If you see anything that makes you uncomfortable in the tags, take care of yourself and don't read this fic. <3
> 
> Metatron's quote at the beginning of this fic will be a bit altered from canon, but very minimally. There are a few things that change, including nephilim lore and some timeline changes involving Abaddon.
> 
> This story is NOT a WIP. It's finished, I'm just doing edits as I go. I'll be updating one chapter every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
> 
> Thanks to MalMuses for beta'ing this chapter. :)

* * *

 

 

_“These were never trials. This was a spell.”_

_“What I’m taking from you now… your essence, your grace… it’s the last piece.”_

_“And now, something wonderful is going to happen — for me and for you,” Metatron said. “I want you to live this new human life to the fullest.”_

_Castiel struggled weakly, his body thrumming with the loss of his grace, his limbs tingling numbly. His struggling was fruitless._

_Metatron smiled wide, his eyes alight as he continued, his voice sounding inspired._

_“Fall in love. Make a baby,” he breathed. “And when you die, and your soul comes to Heaven, find me…and tell me your story.”_

***

The night the angels fell was a disaster.

Sam drifted in and out of consciousness. He awoke several times, and in each instance, he could register very little other than pain. It seized his muscles and squeezed his heart, sending shooting pains through his body, cascading agony through his limbs, setting his nerves on fire. Something inside of him was trying to kill him. It was angry at him for not completing the trials.

Sam was convinced that he was dying.

Amidst his fits of agony, Sam also vaguely registered Dean’s attempt to stay calm, and he registered that his brother was failing.

A little while later, Sam awoke in the Impala, screaming, and he heard his brother yelling for him, asking him if he was okay. He felt Dean’s hands on his shoulders and his head as he begged Sam to tell him what was wrong. Sam couldn’t speak, he could only writhe through the torture and gasp for air that he didn’t feel reached his lungs.

The next time he awoke, he was being carried down the bunker stairs, one arm around his brother, the other around their angel, who was panting too. Near his ear, there were sounds he’d never really heard before — Castiel’s rapid, shallow, swallowing gasps. Through nauseating vertigo, the panicked sounds mingled in Sam’s head with Dean’s “Come on! Hold on, Sam...” The mixed, echoing sounds were the last thing he heard before he was devoured by darkness again.

Hours later —or was it days?— when he woke up, he was aware of the heavy, damp darkness. He was in bed, his body moulded into the mattress. His muscles ached even when he didn’t move. They hurt so badly he irrationally worried that they’d separated from his bones.

Again, Sam thought he was dying.

He didn’t move. He could only lay there, shaking in the dark. Then he heard those shallow, swallowing gasps again; _Castiel_.

“Dean, it’s all my fault—” More gasping. It was getting worse. “—I ruined everything. I-I ruined it. No. _No._ ”

The last ‘no’ dissolved into a horrible moan of misery. Even in his agony, Sam’s heart squeezed painfully. He’d never heard Castiel cry before. It was a heartbreaking sound. Sam wanted it to stop. He wanted to get up, to help him. But he did not move. He couldn’t.

“Stop. Stop!” another voice — Dean’s — said in a hushed manner, and Sam knew that voice, that it was inundated with desperation and panic. “Cas, it was a mistake. You were doing your best. It’s gonna be okay. You’re gonna be okay.”

“Help me,” Cas begged. “Please, I need you.”

More crying. It was wretched.

Sam prayed for it to stop.

The last things he heard, before he succumbed to the sweet serenity of unconsciousness, were the sounds of fabric shuffling and muffled crying. His brother’s voice lulled Sam to sleep again.

“It’s okay, Cas. It’s okay. I’m right here… I’ve got you.”

 


	2. Changes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to MalMuses for the beta edit on this chapter. :)

It took Sam six weeks to recover from the trials.

After a few days, he could sit up, the ache in his bones fading more and more with every short burst of consciousness he enjoyed. He slept most of the time but managed to eat and drink two or three times a day. 

Dean was there most of the times Sam woke up, but it took a full week and a half before Cas was there too, sitting in a second chair pulled up beside Dean, a book balanced on his lap. He’d looked up at him with big blue eyes, and a very small toothy smile of relief. It was so human, and simultaneously _so_ Cas and not Cas at all.

Sam was amused and strangely touched to see Cas out of his suit and trenchcoat. He was perched cross legged on the chair, his bare knees poking out of rips in a pair of Dean’s old jeans. One of Dean’s old band t-shirts fit snugly around Cas’ shoulders and draped loosely down his torso. His socks didn’t match. Again, so human, yet so Cas. It was absurd.

Dean had delivered bad news about Kevin - he’d left the bunker. The crazy kid had carved all manner of sigils into his skin and disappeared. His belongings were gone. 

But he called. He called to tell them he was in hiding, on the run, that he needed a break. There was sunlight where he was. He was still working on the tablets and they were safe, but he wouldn’t be back for a while. Dean seemed furious about it, but Sam couldn't blame Kevin. They’d trapped him down in the bunker and sheltered him from everything for too long. 

A two weeks later, Sam was almost recovered. He’d shaken off the pain and was left with a body that moved stiffly and slowly, but moved all the same. He didn’t ache, but he was careful not to push himself anyway. 

Frankly, he was lucky he was alive at all. They’d toyed with some pretty strong magic. 

At the beginning of week five, Sam was relatively back to normal. He wouldn’t be running a marathon any time soon, but he woke up early and managed to stay up relatively late. He could eat full meals without feeling sick, and reading for longer than an hour didn’t subject him to splitting migraines. 

By the end of week six, Sam was healed. He woke up one morning feeling refreshed. Actually, it had been a long time - months, maybe even years - since he felt this good. 

_6:00AM_ , said the clock by his bedside. 

Shocked, but incredibly happy, Sam got out of bed and went to the kitchen to eat. Quickly, the idea of making a meal for just himself was abandoned. He was so excited to cook a meal on his own again that the result was an entire spread of food across the kitchen island, enough for three grown men. 

When Dean walked into the kitchen at 7:15, he stopped at the doorway, staring bleary eyed at the table, then at Sam.

“The fuck?” he mumbled, pointing at the set table.

Sam grinned. “Food!”

Dean grunted, dragging himself down the steps, his feet pattering over the floor. He dropped down onto the bench at the table. 

“Where’s Cas?” Sam asked, setting a cup of coffee down in front of Dean. His brother hummed thankfully. Sam slipped down onto the bench across from Dean, setting down plates in front of them both.

“Brushing his teeth,” Dean muttered into the cup, raising it to his lips. He took a gulp of the liquid and hissed as it burnt his tongue, but he continued, wincing, “The heathen brushes his teeth before _and_ after he eats.”

Sam grinned around a bite of scrambled egg. “It’s good for your teeth.”

A heaping pile of scrambled egg was shoved into Dean’s mouth. He snorted. “Honestly, whatever he wants. It’s better than him doing nothing, which is what he did for a whole week after he fell.”

They never really talked about what happened when Sam had been in and out of consciousness and recovering those first few weeks. A frown tugged on Sam’s lips and his chewing slowed. “What do you mean?”

“Right,” Dean’s eyes flicked up at Sam and he smiled bitterly. “You were still out of it then. Yeah, he kinda…shut off. Didn’t do much. Just slept all day and didn’t, y’know… take care of himself and stuff.” Dean shook his head. “It took a few tries and one big motivational speech about how humanity was worth it. I had to tell him he was gonna be a kick ass human, and blah blah blah, y’know, the usual.”

Busying himself with buttering some toast, Dean had reverted his eyes to his plate. Sam nudged him under the table with his foot. Dean glanced up expectantly.

“You’re a good friend to him, Dean.”

“Yeah, well,” Dean muttered, taking a snappy bite from his toast, “someone had to be. Your goofy ass was all busy being unconscious and stuff, so I had to channel my inner Sam — who is a big sappy loser by the way — and say all kinds of nice shit.”

Sam smiled. “I’m sure he really appreciated it.”

Dean’s eyes glanced at Sam and then he shrugged. “Yeah, probably.”

Cas picked the opportune time to walk into the kitchen. He was wearing another of Dean’s t-shirts and a thin pair of sweatpants. They really needed to get on buying him his own clothes. 

He’d clearly just jumped out of the shower, his hair semi-damp with the ends drying and the top kind of fluffy. He brought the smell of fresh, crisp body wash and shampoo with him.

“Good morning,” he greeted, sliding onto the bench beside Dean, who inhaled deeply and cleared his throat. Castiel looked around the table, taking in the spread of food. He frowned.

“Dean, did you make breakfast?” Castiel asked, confused. “When did you have time?”

“It was me, Cas,” Sam interjected, smiling. “Help yourself.”

Cas’ frown and confused face melted away and he smiled. It made him look younger, with the creases on his forehead and eyes relaxing. “I’m pleased you feel well enough to do this.”

“Don’t listen to him, Sam. He’s only pleased because he’s developed a thing for bacon,” Dean chuckled, grabbing some tongs and depositing an obscene amount of the baked bacon on Cas’ plate. “He’s a fiend.”

Sam grinned as Cas tucked in, his eyes excited as he bit into the food with a small crunch. 

Cas pulled out his phone and scrolled through the news as he did every morning, chewing slowly. A long lock of brown hair fell into his eyes. Absentmindedly, he swotted it away.

Sam was about to point out how long it had gotten, when Dean beat him to it.

“You and Sam preparing your auditions for an upcoming Pantene commercial, Cas?”

Distracted, Cas mumbled, “Yes.”

Dean rolled his eyes and Sam was surprised to see him reach up and tuck another rogue brown lock behind Cas’ ear for him, while Cas blew out of the corner of his mouth at the hair in his eyes. The long bit of fringe flapped in the air for a second and then fell back into his vision.

“It is getting long, Cas,” Sam pointed out, raising a glass of orange juice to his lips. “It grows fast now, huh?”

“Like freakishly fast,” Dean muttered, shoving bacon into his mouth ungracefully. “Must be some left-over angel mojo or something.”

That got Cas’ attention. He paused his scrolling and bristled. A piece of bacon hovered in front of his lips. Slowly, he said, “There’s...no left-over angel mojo.”

“Coulda fooled me, Rapunzel.”

“Dean,” Sam warned. His eyes flickered over to Cas, who was swallowing hard and was lowering the bacon onto his plate with a weird look on his face.

Dean looked up from his food then followed Sam’s gaze over to Cas, blinking cluelessly. His eyes swept over the hard line of Cas’ jaw that worked, and the quick blinking that shuttered over Cas’ eyes for a second.

“Sorry, Cas,” Dean said. 

“You can cut my hair if you want,” Cas replied quickly, putting his food down. His lips were pursed. “I don’t care what it looks like.”

They all sat awkwardly for a second, the only sound being Sam’s swallows as he drank deeply from his glass.

Dean broke the silence. He nodded at the side of Cas’ face. “Sure. Maybe just the back. I’m kind of shit at cutting hair. Ask Sam. He asked me to do it once, but then threatened to stab me with the scissors when I didn’t ‘layer right’ or whatever.”

Dean ducked as a piece of banana whizzed by his head. He grinned and flipped Sam the middle finger.

Sam rolled his eyes and then turned back at Cas. “So, did you find anything out about the angels?”

“No,” Castiel replied tightly, eyes lowered back down to the small screen in his hand. “The news stations have tired of reporting about the ‘meteor shower’. There have been two instances of people being found with their eyes burnt out, but the nearest one is in New York.”

Dean hesitated. “That’s far.”

“We’ve driven farther for less, Dean,” Sam argued, raising an eyebrow.

“Sam,” Dean huffed, turning his face quickly to stare at his brother incredulously, “there’s no way I’m dragging you to New York.”

“Why?”

Dean’s eyes went wide, and his mouth dropped open with disbelief. “Why? Uh, because it’s a, like, twenty-hour drive.”

“So?” Sam retorted.

“So,” Dean emphasized, waving his fork around, “you only _just_ recovered from the trials. I think we should wait until there is something closer—”

“New York, _Iowa_ ,” Cas corrected, his face lit up blue from the phone screen. “It’s a five-hour drive if we go the speed limit.”

Sam grinned.

“No,” Dean shot Cas a look of disapproval, then looked back to Sam. “Just because you can get up early and make breakfast doesn’t mean you’re fully healed.”

“I’m fully healed,” Sam replied bluntly. He understood why Dean was hesitant - they _just_ all started to feel normal. Knowing Dean, he’d be frightened something would happen to Sam or Cas. Still, they weren’t going to put Heaven and Hell on pause because Dean wanted to relax for a second.

Dean huffed. “Well…I’m sure this happened days ago. The bodies probably aren’t even there anymore.”

“Regardless, we should investigate this,” Cas urged, looking up from his phone to gaze at Dean pointedly. “This is the closest angel activity that has occurred since The Fall. We should at least go to the scene, see if there were any clues left behind.”

Sam nodded. “It may give us some insight into their activities, tell us something about the factions. Maybe they—”

“Ugh. Fine!” Dean barked, snatching up a piece of bacon with vigor. 

Cas and Sam smiled at each other while Dean shook his head, glaring out into the kitchen and chewing irately. 

“One nice breakfast together and you’re already revving up to run into danger,” Dean muttered. “This is why we can’t have nice things.

***

Sam didn’t know what Dean thought could possibly go wrong during the drive. Five hours wasn’t that bad and honestly, Cas was complaining more than Sam was. Sam was happy to read and listen to music on his headphones. Cas was the one who needed to pee every hour-and-a-half and complained that the backseat was uncomfortable. The only real annoying thing about their trip to New York, Iowa was the constant bickering between Dean and Cas.

“I have to pee.”

“Oh my god,” Dean growled. “Seriously, dude? Again? We _just_ stopped like an hour ago. I told you not to drink that entire Gatorade in one shot. It was the size of your head.”

Cas rolled his eyes. “I was thirsty. If I recall correctly, you’re the one who thought three packages of beef jerky would be sufficient sustenance for five hours of travel. It’s a lot of sodium, Dean.”

“True story,” Sam concurred.

Dean shot Cas a glare and threw one Sam’s way too, for good measure. 

“Shut up.”

They bickered about _everything_. Cas complained that the car was too slow, that the backseat was too cramped, that the music was too loud. Dean argued that Cas was being “a diva” and that he preferred him when he was an angel when ‘none of that crap even mattered’. Dean bitched that Cas’ knees were digging into the back of his seat and scolded him for boredly picking at the seam where the window met the door frame.

Sam regretted pushing the trip. Dean had thought that Sam would have issues during the road trip because of some post-trial recovery fatigue or whatever. Maybe he figured Sam would get tired out or sore or sick during the ride. 

Now, Sam secretly agreed; he _did_ have issues during the road trip. But the issues weren’t because he wasn’t feeling well, it was because he was going to kill himself if his brother and his angel didn’t stop bitching and moaning. Launching himself out of the moving car seemed like a pretty swift, easy death. Anything to get him away from the crabby elderly couple snapping at each other over Led Zeppelin.

When they finally reached their destination, it was night time. Dean threw the car into park and rolled down the window, staring out at the diner that was blocked off with police tape. 

Sam leaned over, peering through the window. “Okay,” he said, eyeing the scene. “So apparently there are no cameras to capture footage and—”

“There weren’t any survivors, right?” Dean double checked, turning off the ignition distractedly.

“Nope. So, no victim statements. There were signs of struggle and the doors were locked from the inside, but no one managed to escape,” Sam recalled. “Sounds like angels to me.”

“All right. Let’s go.” Dean nodded, pushing open his door and throwing a shady look at the backseat. “Cas, you can touch but don’t _move_ anything _,_ all right? It’s a crime scene.”

Cas narrowed his eyes at Dean. “Thank you, Dean. I’ve been to a crime scene before.”

Sam scowled and shoved Dean lightly. “Dude, stop being such a dick.”

“Whatever,” Dean grumbled, climbing out and slamming the door behind him.

After making their way past the police tape and breaking in, Sam and Dean went around shutting the blinds. Cas walked around the dinner, avoiding the chalk outlines on the floor. Sam threw Cas a pair of latex gloves and snapped on a pair of his own.

“There’s blood everywhere, but no wings,” Cas pointed out, looking around purposefully. He crossed behind the bar.

Dean was looking in the bathrooms for clues while Sam took the kitchen, peering under the counters and shining a flashlight into an open stove.

They met again in the main dining room minutes later, shrugging.

“Nada,” Dean said grumpily. “There’s nothing. And to be honest, I dunno what we’re looking for. Feathers? Angel blades?”

Sam nodded. “Yeah, I mean...I’m glad we came, but without the bodies here, I guess there’s really not much to see after they’ve cleaned everything up. Angels don’t really leave anything behind. I mean, maybe the smell of o-zone, but even then—”

“Sulphur,” Castiel said abruptly.

“No, that’s demons,” Dean corrected. Sam threw him an annoyed look, pursing his lips.

Cas sniffed the air and turned around, raising his hand. He rubbed his fingers together and pale-yellow powder crumbled from his fingers. “Sulphur,” he repeated.

“Demons,” Dean groaned. He threw Sam a pained look. “I fucking hate demons.”

“Well,” a voice said from behind them, “that hurts my feelings, Dean.”

Dean and Sam jumped, spinning around. Cas glared from behind them.

Abaddon sat on the counter, her legs swinging. She looked between Dean and Sam, grinning, her teeth white and stark against her fiery red lips.

“Boys!” she exclaimed, “It’s about time! How many angel attacks do I have to fake before you come scuttling out? I was told this would be easy, but golly, where have you been hiding?!”

Abaddon hopped off the counter, chuckling. From within her sleeves, two angel blades slipped out and landed swiftly in her palm.

“What do you want with us?” Sam asked, his voice low and dangerous.

Abaddon smirked. “Simple, baby. I want you to tell me where Crowley is and I want you out of my way. You Winchesters had been nothing but a thorn in my side since I got here.”

“Tough shit, Abaddon,” Dean snapped. “We don’t know where Crowley is. We left him in the church after the fall.”

“I checked the church and he’s not there,” Abaddon said slowly, raising a blade and pointing it at Dean. “So unless you can help me with him, then this confrontation will be over very quickly.”

“Great, let’s wrap this up then because I’m already tired of looking at your ugly face, bitch,” Dean snapped, reaching behind his back to grab his own angel blade. 

When he drew it and it was pointed at her, Abaddon rolled her eyes. “Name calling won’t get you very far, Dean,” she turned her other blade on Sam, who stepped aside, leaning away from the tip of the blade as it hovered near his face. “Piss me off and maybe I’ll kill your brother first and make you watch while I…”

She trailed off, her eyes drifting away from Sam’s face as the Winchesters parted, revealing Cas behind them. Her gaze stopped on Castiel, who glared at her, his lips pressed together tightly and his brow furrowing as she narrowed in on him.

“Oh my,” Abaddon breathed, her eyes twinkling as she gazed at Cas. Her head tilted, and she stepped towards him, her face brightening with delight. “Look at _you_.”

Castiel stood his ground but his fingers curl into fists.

Abaddon looked from Sam to Dean, and she laughed. “Is _this_ why you’ve been in hiding? Oh, _boys._ ”

She kept walking towards Cas, her eyes unmoving from his face. She was lowering her weapons. 

Cas tilted his head up defiantly. Clearly, they had no idea what she was talking about, but none of them moved to prove her wrong. If she thought they had more information than they did, then they were okay to let her believe that. It might keep them alive longer.

“You’re glowing,” Abaddon breathed. “It’s starting, isn’t it? You’re changing.”

Sam and Dean exchanged looks. Cas’ brow twitched. 

“No,” he replied stoically. “I’ve been human for weeks now.”

Abaddon snorted and shook her head, tilting it at Cas. “No. You know what I mean. What’s your name?”

“Nevermind his name, bitch. Back off,” Dean snapped, moving to step in front of Cas, but Abaddon flicked her wrist, pressing the tip of her blade into Dean’s neck. Dean came to an abrupt pause, glaring daggers down the length of the blade at Abaddon.

“Down kitty, or I’ll neuter you,” Abaddon drawled, smirking. “Back. Up.”

Dean did as he was told, staring at the demon hatefully, his lip curling. With the demon distracted, Sam angled his body away, slowly reaching behind his back.

“Name?” she repeated.

Cas’ eyes flickered across her face, then he ground out, “Castiel.”

Abaddon was in Cas’ face now, almost chest to chest with him. Her eyes swept over his features. “You’ve been able to feel it, haven’t you, Castiel? The changes?”

‘Changes?’ Dean mouthed at Sam from Abaddon’s other side. 

“It’s a parasite, you know,” she explained to Cas, who looked openly confused now. “It’ll create the perfect environment to feed, it’ll ramp up every vitamin and nutrient in this delectable body, and then it will drain you until there’s nothing left.”

Cas’ mouth twisted to ask ‘what?’, but Abaddon carried on, her eyes bright and wide. “Unless… what if I just cut it out and spell your body to stay that way? Oh, the possibilities. Do you know what I could do with magic like that? I could make an army. A beautiful, dark army of angel and demon hybrids.”

“What?” Cas rasped, shaking his head. He looked perplexed, and also like he was done with her shit already.

“Or if that didn’t work out, at the very least you could provide entertainment for me and my colonels, if they behaved.” Abaddon tilted her head, grinning, her red curls swinging to the side. “Would you like that, Castiel? On your hands and knees for my loyal followers. Or would you prefer that I kept you for myself?”

Sam’s hand wrapped around the blade behind his back and he jolted forward swinging his arm around Abaddon’s middle, sweeping her off her feet and throwing her onto a diner table.

Abaddon snarled as her back slammed down against the table top. Her eyes snapping to black and she raised the angel blade in her hand to strike Sam, who pinned her down. 

Cas, using the table behind him as leverage, kicked the sword out of her hand. The blade flew across the diner and clattered to the floor. Dean jumped into action too, grabbing her now-free hand that pounded the side of Sam’s head, and twisted it at an unnatural angle. 

“I WILL KILL YOU, WINCHESTERS!” she shrieked, kicking out to be freed. Cas grabbed her legs and began reciting an Enochian spell. By the way Abaddon roared, an unnatural, deep roar, it was some kind of exorcism. 

She arched up, black eyes on Cas. “Expel me if you wish, angel whore, but I’ll be back for you when the time is right. I will take the throne of Hell with the power of Heaven under my feet!”

With that, she screamed and smoked out of her meatsuit. 

***

Cas, Sam, and Dean high-tailed it from the diner after Abaddon crashed their investigation. Her roar would have alerted anyone living above the restaurant. 

They were barely in the car and speeding away when Dean barked, “What the hell was that?”

Sam nodded, turning in his seat to face Cas. He couldn’t help it, he eyed him, doing a sweep of his body. “What was she talking about, Cas? Changes and parasites?”

Cas shrugged, though his eyes were wide with concern and uneasiness. “I’m…not sure.”

“Are you lying, Cas?” Dean asked hotly, dark green eyes flickering up to look at Cas in the rearview mirror. 

“No!” Cas replied indignantly. “What kind of question is that?”

“Well, sorry, bud, but you kind of have a track record for lying and dodging questions—”

Both Sam and Cas’ mouths dropped open. Sam gave Dean’s shoulder a little tap and he choked out, “Dude!”

Cas crossed his arms over his chest, looking torn between being hurt and being royally pissed off.

“I don’t know what to tell you, Dean,” Cas clipped, his annoyed eyes flickering at the back of Dean’s head. “I don’t know what she’s talking about.”

Sam sighed, running his fingers through his head. “Do…angels get parasites?”

“ _If_ I was an angel, _”_ Cas said through his teeth, “perhaps I could. But I’m not. I’m sure she was mistaken, or more plausibly, she’s trying to play some kind of trick.”

“She said she’d come for you,” Dean said, and Sam noticed his tone lacked the bite it had held the last time he’d spoken.

Cas shrugged, gazing out the window. “I don’t know why she said that.”

“She called you a whore,” Dean pointed out. “What was up with that?”

“I don’t know, but it was rude,” Cas murmured.

Sam would have snorted, but the connotations behind Abaddon’s slimy words were dark. “Rude, yeah. And kind of rapey.”

“What is it with you and demons wanting to have sex with you, Cas?” Dean asked, shaking his head. “First Meg, now Abaddon.”

Cas leaned forward, his eyes narrowed. Angrily, he growled, “Are you seriously comparing Meg and Abaddon?”

Sam cleared his throat. “Well, whatever she meant, we won’t let her take you anywhere, Cas. We won’t let her or her ‘loyal followers’ get their hands on you.”

Beside him, Dean nodded, but he didn’t say anything. Cas noticed too, his eyes softening as he stared at the back of Dean’s head.

“I’ll…keep an eye out for changes,” Cas said, tucking a long piece of hair behind his ear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave me a comment to let me know what you think. They're my favourite.


	3. Lady In A Trenchcoat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to MalMuses for the beta edit!

After the run in with Abaddon, Cas did not have to keep an eye out for changes for too long. In the days immediately following their run in with the demon, Cas began to change.

The changes had _started_ subtle. His hair grew quickly, and his skin was smoother, healthier. The shadow around his jaw gradually disappeared over a few days. Sam noticed that Cas seemed to lose weight rather quickly and that’s when the real alarm bells went off.

Sam wasn’t the only one noticing. Dean noticed too. If Dean, who never noticed anything, who took two months to notice when Sam cut his hair, noticed that Cas was skinnier, then it was a problem.

Sam caught Dean staring at Cas all the time when he thought he wasn’t looking. Dean’s eyes swept over his friend and he rolled his tongue in his mouth, looking thoughtful and really quite worried.

At first, they could have blamed his humanity - his hair was shiny and strong, his skin was glowing, plump and healthy - maybe he was taking extra good care of himself now, or maybe they had never had to see Cas function as a human, so stuff like his hair wasn’t something they’d ever needed to notice. But it wasn’t just growing healthier and shinier, it was growing freakishly quickly. At least twice a week Sam caught Dean and Cas sitting on the iron steps, Dean with scissors in his hand, hacking at the hair at the nape of Cas’ head, brown hair falling through the steps and down onto the machines below. He left the rest as is, claiming, “I don’t do haircuts unless they involve a bowl and some kitchen scissors.”

While Dean had joked about Cas’ hair length catching up to Sam’s, two months after the fall of the angels, Cas’ hair really was probably the same length as Sam’s. He kept it in a messy ponytail most of the time, though a few rogue strands made a habit of falling in his face. Sam could only imagine how long it was getting. That one stubborn piece of hair that kept falling in Cas’ face was past his jawline.

The changes really ramped up their research on fallen angels. Dean and Sam were concerned, though Sam hid it better than Dean, who was basically always watching Cas, as if worried he was going to burst into flames or crumble into a pile of dust. Cas insisted he was fine, that he felt great, but they knew Cas had a reputation for pretending to be fine, so they hit the books, hoping to find a fallen angel-related explanation for the changes to his hair, skin, and body mass.

There were other changes too, and these ones cause more concern than finding random hair ties in weird places all over the bunker.

Dean blurted out over breakfast one morning that Cas looked thinner. The weight loss was a cause for concern, not just on a supernatural level, but on a very human level. Dean took Cas’ hand and ran his fingers over Cas’, inspecting them. Cas’ fingers seemed to be _shrinking_.

Cas seemed disconcerted too. He asked more than once if this was ‘a normal human thing’ that he just didn’t get. Cas even tried to suggest that perhaps he wasn’t eating enough to maintain Jimmy’s muscle mass.

The weird thing was…Cas was eating — he ate _a lot_. He ate a bunch of times through the days and a _bunch_ of weird times during the night. Weird combinations too, like pickles and peanut butter on white bread, and strawberries with balsamic vinegar and black pepper. The latter combination had Dean gagging over lunch one time. Weird combinations aside, Sam and Dean couldn’t figure out why he was losing weight.

When Cas complained about feeling queasy during a viewing of Reverend Buddy Boyle’s latest YouTube video, Dean had to agree with him. Not only was the dude creepy, but the message he was sending out was creepier. The angels were looking for vessels and Buddy Boyle was trying to get them some through his viewership.

While Dean thought the message was complete and utter shit, dozens of people around the US did not agree apparently, because the angels were getting their vessels, and when the vessels weren’t strong enough, they were exploding. They were exploding all over the USA.

***

One morning, when an entire family exploded in their dining room, painting Sunday dinner in brains and guts, Dean suggested that they suit up and go investigate.

Sam snapped closed his laptop and nodded. “Yeah. I think it’s time we made a move.”

Dean turned his wrist towards himself, staring down at his watch. “It’s nearly three o’clock, we could probably beat the 9-5ers rush hour traffic if we leave within the next hour.”

“Where’s Cas?” Sam asked, suddenly realising he hadn’t seen Cas all day.

“Sleeping.”

“Sleeping?” Sam asked, disbelieving. “It’s…like three in the afternoon.”

His brother shrugged at him and averted his eyes. “We were watching Forensic Files until like three last night. And when he went to bed, he was complaining about his bones hurting and some weird feeling in his chest. I think he’s sick, to be honest, and trying to sleep it off so that we don’t notice.”

“Jeeze.” Sam watched his brother bustle around the kitchen, clearing up the ingredients he’d used to make their lunch. “Is he okay?”

“For sure he’s coming down with something. He spent like four episodes complaining that he didn’t feel well.”

“Is he sick?” Sam asked.

“Eh.” Dean shrugged. “Threw up a couple times but then it went away. He was stuffing his face with Doritos like half an hour later.”

Sam snorted.

“He’ll be fine,” Dean replied flippantly. “You know how he’s been lately; eating every weird thing under the sun. It was about time he realised that peanut butter and pickles don’t fucking belong together. Anyway, go let Cas know we’re heading out. I’ll go get ready.”

Dean left the kitchen. Sam gathered up his things with a sigh and went to get Castiel. He deposited his things in his room first, and then turned the corner into the hallway with Dean and Cas’ rooms. He glanced into Dean’s room, noting him picking pillows up from the floor all around his bed and yanking the covers up. Sam turned away and crossed the last few strides to Cas’ room.

He knocked on the partially open door. “Hey Cas, you up? You feeling any better?”

When got no response, Sam entered.

He froze.

“Uh…?!”

Sam’s choked out exclamation did nothing to wake the sleeping girl in Cas’ bed. She continued to snore into the pillow that covered her eyes. She shifted in the bed and sleepily kicked the covers off her legs. She smacked her lips a bit but otherwise didn’t wake up.

Sam backed out of the room slowly and shut the door behind him. Quickly, he strode into Dean’s room.

“Uh, dude.”

Dean was just finishing making his bed and didn’t look up.

“Is Cas awake yet?” Dean asked, turning down the top of his sheets. “Honestly, it’s kind of a bitch to get him up. We need to buy a whistle or a bull horn or something—”

“Did you bring a girl home last night?” Sam asked quickly.

That’s when Dean paused, looking up at his brother like he’d grown another head.

“A girl?”

“Yeah,” Sam confirmed. “A girl.”

Dean frowned. “Dude, I just told you Cas and I were up watching TV last night. What the hell are you talking about? When the hell would I find time to go pick up a girl?”

Sam crossed the room, while glancing over his shoulder. When he reached Dean, who was staring at him like he was bat-shit crazy, Sam leaned in and whispered, “There’s a girl in Cas’ bed.”

The weirdest expression crossed over Dean’s face. For some reason, he paled, and his eyes went a bit dark.

“Cas has a girl in his bed?” Dean clipped, his voice tight.

Sam didn’t get a chance to suggest that maybe Cas was seeing someone, because Dean shoved past him and was out of the room before Sam could even turn around.

When Sam strode back into Cas’ room, Dean was standing at the foot of the bed, his shoulders a hard line. Sam stopped beside him, his eyes wide, staring at the girl on the bed, then staring at Dean. Dean didn’t move, his face was still as a statue. His lips were pressed together tightly and he looked pissed for some reason.

“She’s wearing my clothes,” Dean whispered. “That’s my fucking shirt. _That’s my fucking shirt, Sam._ ”

That’s when Dean reached back and tugged his handgun from his jeans.

“Maybe we shouldn’t point a gun at Cas’ girlfriend,” Sam suggested, reaching out to stop Dean, though his brother jerked away, and Sam’s hand came back with nothing. The look Dean shot Sam was pure poison.

The girl shifted from her back to her side, pulling the pillow over her head more when Dean noisily clicked off the safety on his weapon. Whoever she was, she was not a light sleeper. She kicked off the rest of the blankets. They puddled onto Sam’s feet. She sighed in her sleep and curled up, pulling up her knees, her mismatched socked feet wriggled. She was wearing Cas’ briefs.

Dean seemed to notice too. His face was furious. In a motion that was too quick, he tugged the pillow off her head and threw it back against a wall, swiftly grabbing the girl by her neck and yanking her to her feet. She yelped as she was thrown back against the wall, her long wavy, messy hair flying around her face like a wild mane.

Dean raised his gun to point up under her chin when suddenly she gasped, “Dean! What are you doing!?”

Sam’s heart fell out of his butt. It was Cas.

His face was smaller and smoother, but it was Cas. It was Cas with a less-angular jawline, a smaller nose, and no stubble, but the same blue eyes and lips and cheekbones. He still had the same dimple in his chin. He was just…a girl. No, a woman. A woman with boobs and thin hands and long legs. She had a smaller frame than Cas’ had always had, but the shoulders were the same and his skin was the same, still tanned. Hell, even her—his?—her hair was the same, just longer and wilder. It stopped about mid-chest.

He looked like Jimmy Novak’s long-lost twin sister.

“Cas?” Sam breathed, crawling over the bed to join Dean and Cas on that side of the room. He gaped at her.

When Dean snatched his hand back like he’d been burned, Cas reached up and wrapped a hand around his own throat, shocked. “What is happening?”

It was the same voice, just higher. Actually, Sam thought with a brief flicker of amusement, it sounded like a girl was trying to make fun of Cas’ deep rasp. Cas massaged his throat, his eyes wide.

“What’s happened to my voice?” he rasped, his voice still thick with sleep. “What… Why are you pointing a gun at me?”

Never had Sam seen his brother click the safety off and hide his gun so quickly in his life. Dean looked like he’d seen a ghost, which happened all the time, but never did he look like _that._ Dean was backing away, his face white.

Cas was looking increasingly nervous. His eyes flickered to Sam and back to Dean, a thin hand reaching up to push wild waves from his face.

Then he realised he was pushing wild waves from his face and plucked up the hair between his fingers, holding it in front of his eyes. His other hand came up to pat at his collar bone, fingers curling in his brown hair.

Cas’ breathing picked up.

“I take it you have no idea what’s going on?” Sam asked.

Cas responded by shoving past them, heading towards the small sink and mirror in the corner of his room. He stared at himself in the mirror, horrified.

Dean and Sam exchanged looks. Then in tandem, they asked, “What the fuck?”

“Indeed,” Cas breathed, his hand coming up to run along his jawline. They watched him step back and rake his eyes down his own body. Dean made a choking noise beside Sam when Cas pulled the collar of his t-shirt out and peered down his top.

“I have breasts.”

Dean swallowed loudly. “Yes. Y-Yes, you do.”

Sam quickly looked up at Cas’ face, feeling like a pervert, realising he was staring at the two decently sized breasts protruding from Cas’ chest. Yes. Yes, Cas definitely had breasts.

When Cas’ eyes went wide and he pulled the waistband of his briefs forward, both Dean and Sam looked away.

“Oh _no_.”

The waist band snapped back into place. Dean and Sam looked back at Cas, who was staring at himself in the mirror again, going paler.

“We so don’t need this right now,” Dean mumbled. Sam looked back at him and Dean shrugged.

Cas turned to them, his face arranged into a panicked look. “Are you… You both have all your regular genitalia?”

They both nodded. Dean released a high little, “Mmhmm!”

Cas ran his hand through his hair and winced as it got tangled a bit. “I…I had noticed that it was shrinking but I didn’t think much of it.”

“It?” Sam asked, confused.

Cas nodded very seriously. “My penis, Sam.”

“Whoa!” Sam exclaimed, while Dean sat down on the bed, shaking his head, looking dazed.

“What?” Cas asked, his brows furrowing.

“You don’t just tell people about shrinkage.”

Castiel tilted his head, mouthing ‘shrinkage?’ in confusion. Dean shot up and rounded the bed, pushing past Sam.

“Did you read from any spell books or talk to anyone? Did you leave the bunker between last night and now?” Dean swept past Cas, opening the mirrored cabinet and yanking open drawers. “We need to check for hex bags.”

“No,” Cas stumbled, kneeling to check under his bed, “I just went to bed. I…I didn’t do anything.”

“You didn’t touch anything?” Dean pursued, yanking out Cas’ bedside drawer and emptying it out onto the bed. He rummaged through the stuff frantically. “You didn’t open any of the curse boxes in the storage room, right?”

“No!” Cas growled, reaching across Dean to yank his old blue tie out of Dean’s hand before Dean threw it over his shoulder like he was doing with everything else. “Stop throwing my things!”

Sam got on his knees, feeling under his mattress. Nothing.

“When did you start noticing, uh, those changes?” Sam asked, getting down on his hands to check under Cas’ other bedside table.

“Two weeks ago,” Cas replied, as he squinted into his black boots, shoving a small hand inside to feel around for hex bags.

Dean paused, a weird frown appearing on his face. From across the bed, he stared at Cas, who was unaware, picking up his other boot to peer inside.

“Is that why you haven’t been…”

Dean trailed off.

Pausing his search through Cas’ bookshelf, Sam looked over in time to see Cas pause too and meet Dean’s eye. Cas and Dean stared at each other, their faces soft and unreadable. Sam turned around, rolling his eyes. More eye-fucking. What else was new?

“Wait a second,” Sam whispered, doing a double take at Cas. “Do you think these are the changes Abaddon was talking about?”

Dean’s eyes narrowed, and before Cas could speak up, Dean accused, “You knew about these changes for two weeks, but you didn’t think to tell us when we asked you if you knew what Abaddon was talking about?”

Castiel looked backed into a corner. His eyes were wide as he replied indignantly, “I didn’t think to tell you about my penis, Dean!”

Dean looked ready to fire back, but Sam cleared his throat and gestured around the room. “It’s fine, guys. We know _now_ so let’s do a sweep of the room instead of fighting about, uh, Cas’ penis. Check for hex bags or anything you think Abaddon might’ve planted.”

They searched for a good fifteen minutes. It was Dean that called off the hunt.

He huffed and sat back on his heels, shaking his head. “No hex bags.”

“Nope,” Sam agreed.

Cas looked around at his torn-up room and then sat down on the bed, shaking his head and looking lost. He blew out of the corner of his mouth to get a piece of rogue hair out of his face. It flapped around and then fell back, swinging in front of his eyes.

Dean handed him a hair tie from the floor glumly. Cas took it and twisted his hair into a ponytail near the crown of his head.

Sam slid a drawer back into Cas’ chest of drawers and then leaned back against it. “Well…there’s got to be some explanation. We should hit the books again. Abaddon said the ‘changes’ were due to some parasite. Maybe she wasn’t lying. Maybe there’s some kind of _thing_ in Cas—” Cas looked alarmed, blinking at Sam— “We should hunker down today and do some research.”

Dean rubbed his eyes. “I thought we were going to check out that angel stuff.”

Sam shrugged. “We could, but don’t you think this is more important?”

Cas was staring down at the floor, looking thoughtful. He turned his head up to survey Sam, his eyes narrowed.

“What angel stuff?” he asked Sam. “More of Abaddon’s trickery?”

He twisted around to look at Dean when he spoke instead of Sam.

“No. Real angels this time, we think. Buddy Boyle’s followers’ve been getting explode-y nearby,” Dean explained tiredly. “Police found an entire family of victims in a house only a few hours away from here.”

“That seems more important than this,” Castiel scolded, gesturing vaguely to himself. “This problem doesn’t require an immediate remedy. The angels are more important. If there’s a…a parasite inside me, then it’s been there for a while.”

“Cas,” Sam said softly, “we should take care of you first.”

“No,” Cas said, shaking his head, flapping at a long strand of hair that fell in his eyes. “I would much rather go investigate angel activity. I assure you, a vagina and breasts won’t prevent me from hunting.”

“Well, that settles it. I’ll, um, go get ready,” Sam said in a rush, clearing his throat, rubbing his hands against his jeans as he quickly tried to exit the room.

Last thing he saw as he left was Dean’s mouth hanging open.

***

“You look friggin’ ridiculous,” Dean groaned from the driver’s seat as Cas climbed the steps to the Impala.

Cas stopped at the top of the steps and shrugged in frustration, holding his arms out at his sides.

Sam grinned at him from the passenger seat.

“What else would you have me wear, Dean!” Cas snapped. He seemed irritated. “Nothing fits but t-shirts and anything with a waistband.”

The trenchcoat hung off his frame and the dress pants that normally fit his body just fine were bunched up around the waist, held up precariously by his belt which was on its last hole.

“Just get in the car, Castiella,” Dean griped, rolling his eyes.

Cas rolled his eyes right back and slid into the back seat. Sam turned around, his grin widening. Cas’ clothing pooled around him. He looked like he was drowning in it. Sam’s grin disappeared instantly, and he turned back around quickly when Cas shot him a venomous look.

“Not a word,” Cas warned, crossing his arms across his chest.

***

A few hours later, they pulled up in front of the house. It was roped off with yellow police tape. Some officers still lingered outside, and press was interviewing a constable on the sidewalk.

“All right,” Dean announced, throwing the car into park. He surveyed the house as he reached into his pocket and fished out his ID. “Sam, you and I will go in there and check everything out.”

“What about me?” Cas interjected. Dean did a double take at him in the rear-view mirror. It was still strange to hear his female voice.

 

“You sit back there and look pretty.”

Cas squinted at him. “You had better be joking.”

“Tough crowd,” Dean muttered to Sam. He looked back up at Cas in the mirror and said louder, “You’re gonna meet us around back. No one will believe we’re law enforcement with what you’re wearing.”

While it sucked for Cas, Sam thought Dean had a point. Between the huge clothing and the messy ponytail, the real officers would sniff out their cover in seconds.

“We’ll clear out the cops in the back, Cas.”

Cas exhaled heavily, his cheeks puffing out as he swiveled his big blue eyes to gaze at the police cruisers parked across the street.

“Fine.”

***

Sam held true to his word and ordered the police to clear out, stating that this had become a federal investigation. He did ask them for some plastic booties though — the scene was more gruesome than they’d thought.

Cas knocked on the back door and Sam unlocked it for him, handing him the plastic covers.

“Here. Put these on,” he instructed, wincing. “It’s kind of… It’s a bloodbath.”

Cas wrinkled his nose at the smell, nodding and leaning up against the wall to slip the plastic over his shoes.

“It stinks,” Cas commented, pressing the back of his hand under his nose.

Sam snorted. “Yeah, that’s death for you. You get used to it.”

Cas followed Sam to the dining room. He coughed into his hand. “I had never noticed before. It never smelt this strong when I was an angel.”

“I’m jealous of angel-you,” Dean commented as they reached him. He tugged off rubber gloves and tossed them aside, getting up from where he was kneeling at the door of the dining room. He gestured to the floor, a mess of blood, guts, and flesh. “Well…they’re dead. Really dead.”

“I’m so happy we drove out this far to confirm that,” Sam snorted, eyeing the room. The walls were painted in red splatters, soaking the flower-print table cloth, and pooling over the ground. Flesh dangled off the chandelier and hung off the blinds, allowing a ray of sun to shine into the room.

Cas lowered the hand from his face and swallowed hard. Sam raised an eyebrow at him when Cas kept swallowing and he clapped a hand over his mouth.

Then he turned on his heel and went right back out the back door.

Dean and Sam exchanged looks, but then heard retching from behind the house. Dean snorted. “Aw, baby’s first time smelling fresh dead people as a human.”

“Adorable,” Sam quipped back, his lip twitching into a grin, though he tried to hide it when Cas came back in, wiping his mouth on his sleeve.

Dean opened his mouth to make a joke — everyone could tell by the mischievous look in his eye and a twitchy smirk on his lips — but Cas raised a silencing finger. If looks could kill, Dean would be exploded all over the walls of the house too.

“Do not,” Cas warned, “say a thing.”

Then Cas took a shuddering breath and covered his mouth and nose with his loose sleeve, stepping into the room. “These people,” he said, his voice muffled in the sleeve. “They weren’t suitable vessels.”

Sam and Dean exchanged looks, then peered down at Cas. Cas ignored them, his eyes darting around the room suspiciously.

“Suitable?” Dean parroted.

Cas nodded as he prodded a piece of some kind of brain matter. It slid off the side of the table and landed on the ground with a _plop_.

“Not every vessel is appropriate to host an angel,” Castiel explained. “We — _they_ require strong vessels, healthy vessels. Nothing can be wrong with the body or the grace rejects it. Anything otherwise will terminate the possession. Cancer, disease — past, present, or future — prevents the hosting. It is not enough to be devout and willing.”

“Wow,” Dean said grimly. “Angels are dicks.”

“I suspect the angels are desperate to find hosts,” Cas went on, pacing around the room, pressing his hand to his nose again, grimacing. “They’re not screening the vessels for competency. They’re just—”

“Jumping in and hoping for the best?” Dean finished, watching Cas kneel down and narrow his eyes at a piece of eyeball floating in a bowl of soup. A strand of long brown hair fell out of his ponytail and into his eyes.

“Yes.”

“Great,” Sam whispered.

Cas, gingerly stepping over the gore on the floor, casted one parting look of regret around the room before he joined them in the hall again.

“We have to find this Reverend,” Cas started saying. “We need to find out why he’s…”

He trailed off and the three friends exchanged looks when the back door opened again. Three officers stepped into the house, striding up the hallway.

“I beg your pardon,” Dean piped up, reaching into his pocket for his badge. “But I could have sworn I asked you to give us space. This is case falls in federal jurisdiction now, you can’t—”

The officers didn’t stop, and Dean shut his mouth as soon as he spotted three angel blades dropping down from the officers’ sleeves.

“Angels,” Sam announced in a surprised huff, reaching into his jacket to pull out his own blade from the sheath they’d designed to go into their jackets. Dean did the same and Cas snapped his arm forward a bit, sending his blade gliding down into his palm.

“Run,” Dean barked, and then three of them ran.

They burst out of the back door and thundered down the steps. Behind them, the angels followed in pursuit. Before Cas could jump off the last step, one of the angels grasped the flapping belt of his coat and yanked him back. The grunt of surprise from Cas and the smug chuckle from the angel that caught him made Dean and Sam skid to a stop in the grass.

“Let him go!” Dean snarled, stepping towards the band of angels, though he stopped abruptly when the one grappling with Cas raised a blade to Cas’ throat.

Cas went still, eyes turning down hotly to watch the angel’s hand tilt the blade up against his skin. The angel behind him pulled him close, his face tucked in close to Cas’, inhaling deeply.

The angel was possessing a burly looking officer with big hands that made their stomachs drop, especially when the fingers went up and pulled back a long strand of Cas’ hair, tucking it back behind his ear. Cas looked like he was trying desperately to not jerk away, his face twisting into a grimace.

The center angel, the leader, stepped past her two goons and smirked at Dean.

“Doesn’t look like a ‘him’ anymore to me, Winchester.”

“Shut up!” Dean spat. He rolled the angel blade in his fist. “Let Cas go.”

“We’ve been searching for Castiel for weeks, months,” the angel said, tilting her head up. “He’s coming back with us. He cannot be allowed to continue on. We know what has been done and Castiel needs to pay.”

“It was a mistake. I was tricked,” Castiel rasped, “Metatron told me—”

The angel laughed bitterly, turning on her heel to face Cas.

“Metatron? Metatron is not responsible for _this_ ,” the angel sneered, gesturing abruptly to Cas with her sword. “You slimy coward. Blaming Metatron for your transgression. Do you think we’re stupid?”

“It’s true, you idiot!” Dean exclaimed, gesturing to Cas as well. “Just listen to him, he’s trying to tell you the truth.”

 _“You,_ ” the angel scoffed, narrowing her eyes and stepping towards Dean, the blade raised at his chest level. “This is equally your responsibility. You do not get to insult us as well.”

“Kushiel, this is a mistake,” Cas continued bravely, though his eyes darted down to the blade and he recoiled a bit as it was pressed harder against his skin. “Please, sister, listen—”

“Stop!” Kushiel exclaimed, face turning back to Cas, her eyes ablaze. “We’re done listening to you, Castiel. You have committed some of the worst war crimes Heaven could have imagined, but this is one thing we cannot allow. Heaven may be out of our reach, but we still aim to uphold our laws down here on Earth. We have learned of the terror you’ve created and we’re putting a stop to it. You’re going to feel the full force of the Host’s wrath, Castiel. We’ve bound together to put a stop to your abomination. You will face a tribunal, you will be punished, and then you will die.”

Cas tried to step forward, but his captor yanked him back with a violent arm thrown around his waist. As he struggled, he breathed, “Kushiel, please. Metatron has deceived us all—”

“Metatron, Metatron, Metatron,” the angel mocked, her face twisted horribly, spit flying. “What does he have to do with the _monster_ you’ve created? You knew this was forbidden, Castiel. You’ve always known this was forbidden.”

Cas’ eyes flickered over to Dean and Sam. Sam looked at Dean for answers, but Dean looked equally confused. Cas’ head tilted a bit, hair falling in his face. His brows knitted together. “What are you talking about?”

“Angels and humans are not meant to mix,” Kushiel breathed, lowering the weapon to her side. She stepped towards Cas, shaking her head imperceptibly.

Cas didn’t have a reply for her. Her just stared into her face, perplexed.

She tilted her head at Cas in return, searching his face.

“We felt it, Castiel. The moment you created this thing, we felt it like a blast wave through our grace. It rippled the very skin and bone of our vessels, it trembled through the energy of our graces. How could you think you wouldn’t have to pay for this?”

“I don’t understand,” Cas breathed.

She raised a hand to his face, tracing the female features, her fingers brushing over his jawline and then slipped down over his torso, sitting over his heart.

“You are already changing, we can feel it. It’s adapting, evolving. I can feel it around you.” The angel swallowed, her eyes drawn. “The changes have solidified, Castiel. Your vessel has changed. It’s preparing. It is creating a hospitable environment, readying itself to drain you of your life force.”

Cas didn’t move. His breath picked up, his chest rising and falling under her hand. Her hand slipped down his torso, resting over his navel.

“You. This. It’s all blasphemy and mark my words, Castiel, you will die because of this.”

“My vessel is draining me?” Castiel asked, thoroughly confused.

The angel lost her cool and she snarled, “You feign ignorance, but you know what you’ve done, the unforgivable crime you’ve committed. This is the worst of all your transgressions, Castiel.”

“I… It was a mistake!” Castiel stumbled, and Sam could tell he was stalling now, trying to say anything to pull information. “I was tricked. I-I didn’t know about the spell until it was too late.”

Dean interrupted. “You don’t have to explain yourself to these winged dicks, Cas. They’re not listening.”

“We don’t have to listen to you!” Kushiel shrieked, rounding on Dean and Sam. Her eyes bulged, and her face was red as she sputtered, “You Winchesters and Castiel have torn down every morè of Heaven! You destroyed our home and murdered our brothers and sisters, and now you’ve allowed Castiel to conceive a nephilim! He carries it inside him and it is a monster, do you understand? _You are poison!”_

She swept a hand at Dean and Sam, bringing them to their knees with the power of her grace. Sam cried out as his nerves trembled and burned. His fingers curled into the grass and he gasped for air as she used her power to torture them.

Beside him, Dean screamed. Sam squeezed his eyes shut just in time to for Kushiel to scream too and a blinding light erupt from her vessel.

Sam threw his arm up, shielding his eyes. They felt a blast wave erupt around them, hot and powerful.

When he opened his eyes, Kushiel was lying in the grass, her eyes smoking, and her wings burnt into the ground.

Sam’s jaw dropped. He looked up at Cas, who looked equally shocked.

The angel, who had stood beside Cas’ captor and had said nothing so far, jumped into action. He turned to his partner and sneered, “I’ve had enough of this. He’s murdered Kushiel. Kill him!”

Dean pushed off the ground and made to move towards Cas, but the angel holding Cas grunted and pushed the blade against the skin of Cas’ throat. It barely got deep enough to draw blood before he was blasted back against the house.

Sam gasped as the walls collapsed around the catapulted angel and there was another blast wave as the angel’s grace erupted from its vessel.

Again, they shielded their eyes.

The remaining angel who’d given the kill order stumbled back, tripping down the steps away from Cas. He looked horrified, gripping his blade in a trembling hand.

“You’re protected now by a most ancient energy, Castiel,” he hissed shakily. “I see that now…but mark my words, we will return in the fall. This entire farce will end.”

The angel looked over at Dean and Sam and then ran, disappearing around the house.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave me a comment and let me know what you think! 
> 
> Also, lulz at my manip. If you've ever wondered what Misha Collin's face looks like photoshopped onto Kate McGrath, then I guess it's been your lucky day. xD
> 
> Speaking of my manip, Jen made a cute little drawing of it! It's adorbs, check it out here: https://www.deviantart.com/shaitemberwolf/art/Fem-Castiel-773834335


	4. Right On The Tip

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to MalMuses for the beta edit. :)

Castiel stood at the top of the steps. His eyes were wide, he looked paralyzed, his hands shaking as he raised them a bit. His head tilted down slowly to stare at his hands, his throat working visibly.

“Cas?” Sam breathed.

The angel looked up slowly, his eyes looking far away and dazed. They got minimal warning when he dropped, twisting a bit as he keeled forward. 

Dean seemed to blur past Sam, catching Cas before he hit the ground. He caught Cas swiftly, hauling him up into his arms, gripping him tightly against his chest. 

“Let’s move!” Dean instructed gruffly. “That blast would have alerted everyone around.”

They ran back to the car, getting lost in the crowd of neighbours as they filed out from their houses, some on their phones, others whispering together in a frightened manner. The cops that had been outside the house - the non-angel kind - were running in through the front door. A few neighbours did notice them running from the backward with an unconscious woman in in tow, but the boys were at the Impala fast enough to avoid questions.

Dean put Cas in the back of the car and slammed the door, sliding into the front seat. Sam jogged around the car and followed suit.

About fifty speeding laws were broken as Dean drove them home. Sam kept looking back, reaching over the seat to check on Cas by placing a hand under his nose, checking for breathing. 

Twenty minutes away from home, Cas finally woke up, groaning as he pushed himself up. His hair had escaped from the ponytail and swung over his shoulder.

“I feel awful,” he murmured, rubbing his face.

Sam opened his mouth to ask Cas if he was okay, but Dean had other plans.

“What the fuck was that?” Dean asked, his eyes flickering from the road to the female face staring back at him from the back seat. “What the hell were those blasts?”

“I… I don’t know.” Cas pushed hair from his face and ran a hand through it. 

Dean made a noise of disbelief and even Sam frowned at him. 

“You don’t know?” Dean repeated, shaking his head. 

“Dean,” Sam scolded. “Whatever it was, it was protecting us. It saved us.”

“Some random explosive light protects us, and we’re just supposed to be thankful?” Dean exclaimed, shooting his brother a dirty look. “Have you even been _present_ in our lives? Nothing good ever comes without a price, without a reason.”

Sam shook his head. He turned to Cas. They had bigger things to worry about than the guardian energy.

“Cas, what was Kushiel saying about a nephilim?”

Cas looked thoughtful, and maybe a bit unnerved. “She seems to believe a nephilim has been conceived. She thinks I…that I have…” Cas’ throat worked hard, and he paled. “She thinks I have conceived one.”

“Well, she’s wrong,” Dean said abruptly. His hands squeezed around the wheel.

Sam stayed turned around in his seat, staring at Cas. At _female_ Cas. His stomach twisted. Maybe Kushiel was right… Why else would Cas look like this? Why else would his vessel change?

But Cas was looking at Sam, he was staring at the back of Dean’s head, his eyes wide under furrowed brows. 

“I also believe she's mistaken,” Cas murmured. “It couldn’t be. I’m not an angel anymore.”

“Cas,” Sam said. “That blast, I mean…it was protecting you.”

“I’m not an angel anymore,” Cas persisted, his voice strained. “It can’t be. There needs to be grace.”

“Okay, but…” Sam shrugged. “Are you sure you weren’t still an angel after the fall? You don’t think that Metatron might have left a bit in there?”

Cas’ lips parted as he stared at Sam, his eyes shining. His chest began to rise and fall quickly, his eyes darting around the backseat. 

“No,” he said breathlessly. Then he paused, and he whispered, “Maybe? He said…he said he took my grace. He didn't specify that he took _all of it_ , but I…I didn’t believe he left any behind. He told me I was a human.”

Sam raised a hand to his face, rubbing at his eyes. There was a loud thumping noise as Dean’s hand slammed down onto the wheel.

“Are you fucking kidding me, Cas?” Dean yelled, making Cas jump. “You said you were human. You told us you were human.”

“I thought I was,” he replied desperately, shaking his head, shining eyes towards the back of Dean’s headrest. “I couldn’t feel it, the grace. I-I thought it was all gone. I saw him take it, it looked like he took it all. It certainly felt like he did. Dean, I swear. I didn’t know.”

“This is not happening,” Dean hissed. 

Sam ran a hand through his hair, watching Cas try not to panic in the back seat. 

“So, you’ve got another target on your back now.”

Cas’ trembling gaze turned on Sam and he shrugged. “It appears so. If the angels genuinely believe this to be true, that a nephilim has even conceived, they will want me dead.”

“Wait,” Sam said, raising a palm to stop Cas. “They said there’s a power protecting you. They said that they’d be back in the Fall. What’s happening in the Fall?”

“I have no idea,” Castiel whispered, shifting his stare so that it was aimed out of the front windshield.

Sam noticed the tremble in Cas’ hand as it curled around the top of Dean’s seat and decided not to push. Though clearly Dean had other ideas.

“How do we check?” Dean asked, his voice strangely tight. “How do…how do we check if it’s true?”

“You mean other than the sudden appearance of boobs and a vagina, Dean?” Sam asked sarcastically. 

Cas made a little noise of stress from the back seat. 

Sam shot him a look of apology, then exhaled slowly, thinking hard. 

He turned his neck again, eyes landing on Cas, who’d sat back and was staring out of the windshield with a shell-shocked look in his eye.

“Cas, this thing would be half-human, right?”

“If it exists,” Castiel replied slowly, “then yes.”

Dean ran the back of his hand over his upper lip and rested it back over the steering wheel. He exhaled hard through his nose.

“You’re not thinking what I think you’re thinking, Sam…”

“Get off at the next exit. There’s a pharmacy on Main St.” Sam sat back in his seat, sliding his elbow to rest against the window, his fingers tangled in his hair. “We have supplies to pick up.”

***

“Holy crap, Dean,” Sam yelped. “You didn’t have to pick up _that_ many!”

Ten different kinds of pregnancy tests tumbled out of a thin plastic bag, landing haphazardly over the bathroom counter and into the sink. 

“Do I have to do them all?” Cas asked nervously, peering over Dean’s shoulder. “Do they hurt?”

A laugh bubbled in Sam’s chest and he pursed his lips to stop from laughing, but a tiny snort escaped. Cas glared at him through the mirror.

An apology and an explanation of pregnancy tests was on the tip of Sam’s tongue, but Dean beat him to it. His brother ripped open one of the boxes with too much aggression.

“No, Cas,” Dean said through his teeth, dodging a flimsy instruction booklet as it flew out of the box. He pulled out the plastic test and jutted it at Cas, who recoiled from it like it had grown teeth and snapped at him. “You pee on it.”

Cas stared at him, then glanced at Sam for backup. “Uh, is this another joke?”

Sam nodded and patted Cas on the shoulder. “Unfortunately not.”

Again, the test was shoved at him and this time Cas took it, swallowing visibly and turning the little test in his hand.

“I pee on it.”

“Yup.” Dean nodded and rubbed his palms against his legs. “Right on the tip.”

Sam waited expectantly for Dean to follow that up with ‘that’s what she said’, but Dean and Cas had pre-occupied themselves with poorly timed eye-fucking, so Sam leaned up against the wall and stared at the ceiling, knowing they might be there for a while.

“You got enough pee in there?” Dean joked, but his laugh was huffy and lacked conviction. 

Cas exhaled slowly, gripping the test in one hand tightly. “I haven’t stopped having pee in there for weeks. It’s exhausting.”

Dean paled.

Sam pointed to the toilet. “Go do the thing,” he ordered awkwardly, grabbing Dean by the arm, tugging him towards the hallway. “Tell us when you’re done, and we’ll come back in.”

***

“God, what is taking so long, am I right?!” Dean laughed loudly, throwing his hands up in the air and pacing the bathroom.

Cas sat on the closed toilet with his legs up, his toes barely poking out of the bottom of Dean’s plaid pyjama pants. Again, he looked like he was swimming in the clothing, the bottom of Dean’s Iron Maiden t-shirt puddling around his waist. 

His blue eyes were wide and nervous looking, his teeth dragging across his bottom lip. staring at the plastic thing sitting on the counter with poorly-concealed terror. Sam wondered if he knew he was looking more and more like a woman as the hours ticked by, noticing Cas twisting a lock of wavy, messy hair around his finger obsessively. His brows were higher, his lips were more colourful, and his nose was looking smaller and softer as the hours went by.

It had only been forty-five seconds. The box said it would take two minutes, maybe more. Sam checked his watch to give himself a break from staring at Dean pacing and Cas get paler and paler. The situation was nerve-wracking, sure, but the way they were going about it made him even more anxious. With Cas, he understood, but with Dean? Dean needed to find some chill.

“What do we do if it’s positive?” Cas whispered, bringing a long lock of brown hair to his mouth, running the tip over his lips absentmindedly. 

“You take another one,” Dean said in a tone that said, _‘the stupid test wouldn’t dare be positive’._

Sam glanced down at the test.

“You think if I take enough of them that they’ll just say ‘negative’ after a while?” Cas snapped.

Dean threw his hands up in the air again. “What do you want me to say, Cas?”

Sam picked it up, unbothered by that fact that Cas had peed on it, and tilted it in the light, his eyes narrowing.

“I want you to say _nothing_ unless it’s helpful!” Cas retorted, flicking the hair in his fingers over his shoulder angrily. He shifted in the seat and turned his face away from Dean, glaring at a speck engraved in the wall.

“I _am_ being helpful!” Dean barked, pointing at the mountain of pink boxes on the counter. “I’m here, aren’t I? We’re here, aren’t we? It’s as much help as I can offer, Cas, all right?” He crossed his arms over his chest, glaring. “Believe me, I never thought I’d be in this bathroom with some chick waiting for a pregnancy test to develop, so I’m sorry if I’m not completely prepared.”

Two small blue lines appear slowly. 

Cas dropped his legs off the toilet and nodded, looking away, his cheeks tinted red. “Right. I’m sorry.”

They were solid. Sam was pretty sure if there was ever a perfect example of a positive pregnancy test result, he was holding it in his hand.

He threw it in the trash.

Dean heard the noise and spun around, his eyes darting from the garbage bin to his brother. Cas slowly rose from the seat, approaching Sam suspiciously.

“What?” Dean demanded, pointing into the mesh bin. “Did - Sam, I mean. Was it - um, what did it say?”

Sam couldn’t talk through a lump in his throat for a moment. He picked up another box from the counter and extended it to Cas, but Dean reached out and snatched the box instead.

“It was fuzzy,” Sam lied. “Take another one.”

He wasn’t quite sure why he was making Cas do it again, because those blue lines were so clear they seemed to be burned into Sam’s retinas. As he watched Dean rip open the box and pass Cas the test, he figured maybe he’d done it because Cas looked really scared. It was stupid, but he wanted Cas to enjoy two more minutes where he didn’t know for sure what was happening to him. He wanted Cas to have two more minutes to just be Castiel, fallen angel of the Lord, and not some baby’s parent.

Well, Sam thought with a weird turn of his stomach, that was a weird thought. Cas was gonna be someone’s parent. 

... if they didn’t all get killed first because of it.

To give Cas privacy, Dean and Sam exited the bathroom quickly, the door slamming behind them. They each leaned on the wall on either side of the door, quiet in the dark.

“This is crazy,” Dean whispered.

You have no idea, Sam thought. But he glanced over at his brother. “Yeah, I’ve been kinda feeling like this is some really messed up dream since this morning.”

Dean was silent, and Sam had to do a double take to make sure Dean hadn’t passed out. He was awake all right, but Dean’s eyes looked far away and distracted. Sam reached to the side and pushed Dean a bit with the tips of his fingers.

“Hey, dude,” Sam said, smiling a bit when Dean looked over. “It’ll be fine. We’re Cas’ best friends. We’ve got his back. We’re not gonna let him down, okay? We’ll sort this out if, uhm, the thing is positive.”

He was aware that Dean and Cas were the ones who were best friends. Sam wasn’t an idiot. He knew they had a connection forged in Hell, a profound bond that linked them beyond some boring human friendship. He knew Dean worried about Cas a lot, he knew that Dean cared for Cas more than he’d ever cared for one of their other friends. They’d gone through stuff together in Purgatory that Sam would never know or begin to understand. 

Despite what Sam had said, the stress didn’t drain from Dean’s shoulders. Sam made to say something again, but the door opened between them, the hallway cast into light again.

“I peed.”

Dean and Sam pushed off the wall and turned in sync, filling the doorway in front of Cas. The wide-eyed brunette looked from one brother to the other. Sam nodded kindly at Cas and stepped back inside, retaking his position as keeper of the pee-test.

Dean and Cas remained at the doorway, exchanging strange, guarded looks.

These two minutes weren’t loud like the previous ones. These two minutes were quiet, the only sounds were the ticking of Sam’s wrist watch and the occasional thump of old pipes in the walls.

When the two-minute mark hit, Sam picked up the test. Unsurprisingly, two bold blue lines displayed across the plastic test. This time, Sam looked up at Cas, who had crossed the room and was standing in front of Sam, his thin hand extended.

A tension filled the room for a moment and all three humans held their breath. Sam felt his muscles tense, waiting for the reaction after he handed Cas the test. He had no idea how Cas was going to respond to the news.

Cas stared at the test for a few seconds too long, his mouth hanging open a bit, his tongue darting out to wet his lips repeatedly. 

Dean pushed off the door frame and began crossing the room. He was just behind Cas, about to read the test over his shoulder when Cas turned away, throwing the plastic test in the bin with vigor.

Dean’s face flicked up to Sam and he gaped. “Why the hell does everyone _keep doing that_?”

“It’s _lying_ ,” Cas growled, snatching up another box from the counter, his long nails scratching at the cardboard.

Sam watched his brother understand instantly, whatever colour left in his face draining quickly. For a brief moment, he was worried Dean might pass out or throw up.

“Open it,” Cas wavered, and Sam realised his teeth were chattering, his fingers shaking. “I-I can’t. My hands are sweating.”

To his credit, Dean reached forward and helped Cas open the box. Sam felt suddenly very useless as Cas swept away, his hair flapping in the wind fiercely, and Dean followed, wrenching open the cardboard and tossing it aside, the manual fluttering to the ground, forgotten.

The feeling of uselessness was joined quickly by the feeling of embarrassment as he realised Cas had given up all pretenses of modesty and privacy. Sam turned away as Cas dropped down on the toilet and shoved the test between his legs, his pants around his knees, the t-shirt covering essentially everything, even his thighs. 

With his knees shaking, Cas completed the test, his head bowed, his long tumbling waves falling around his face. 

There was no reason to look away, but mainly Sam wanted to avoid any embarrassment Cas might feel later. Strangely, from what he saw before he turned around, Dean had also given up pretenses of decency, instead opting to crouch down beside Cas and rest a hand on his arm. 

Again, the next two minutes were silent. 

Like the two previous tests, this one was positive too.

Cas stared at it, his eyebrows furrowing. Dean took it from Cas after there was too long of a silence. 

“Fuck,” he whispered, staring at the solid blue lines. Then again, louder and angrier, staring up at the ceiling. “Fuck!”

Cas stared hard at a button on Dean's shirt and exhaled through a small, tight hole made by his lips. Sam watched his hand come up and run through his hair once, twice, three times. By the third time, it was shaking and Cas was taking very deliberate breaths in through his nose and out through his mouth. The other hand was shaking at his side. 

“Cas?” Sam asked, taking a step towards him. “You okay? 

Cas nodded quickly but it seemed that as soon as Sam asked if he was okay, his lips began to tremble, and his eyes glazed over, thick with tears. 

“Mhmn,” he hummed with a tremble. “I’m fine.”

More silence. Dean broke the disturbed quiet by getting abruptly to his feet, trudging over to the sink to snatch up another pregnancy test.

Cas sniffed and ran a hand under his nose, whispering tightly, “Well, now we know what parasite Abaddon was referring to. We k-know what she wants with me.”

Sam diverted his eyes as Cas’ face crumpled.

He only looked up again when Dean’s arms came around Cas’ shoulders and raspy, hiccuping gasps became muffled in the soft flannel of Dean’s shirt. Another of the unopened pregnancy tests got crushed in Dean’s fist and was dropped to the floor. 

“Hey, hey. It’s okay. I got you. I got you.”

Cas’ fingers curled in Dean’s shirt and he buried his face in Dean’s neck.

Sam tried to be as quiet as he could as he left the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Leave me a comment to let me know what you think! :D


	5. The P-Word

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to MalMuses for the beta edit. :)

Dust curled up at Sam’s face after he snapped another Christian mythology book closed with an annoyed flick of his wrist. 

Nothing. There was _nothing_ in it to do with fallen angels or nephilim. 

His sigh was loud in the quiet kitchen. He stabbed a piece of cold waffle with his fork and popped it into his mouth angrily, chewing the food like it had personally done something wrong to him.

Dean’s feet pattered down the hallway, his gait recognizable anywhere. Sam looked up and greeted his groggy brother. “Morning.”

Bleary green eyes squinted at him and Dean nodded, rubbing the back of his neck and yawning. “Mornin’.”

“I made waffles. They’re a bit cold, but just put some syrup on them and you’ll be fine,” Sam said, gesturing to the pastries piled on a plate near his elbow.

“Awesome. I’m starved,” Dean groused, rubbing his eyes wearily. He made his way over to the coffee machine, pouring himself a full mug of the hot, piping dark brown liquid. After a loud slurp, Dean gestured down to the old books piled on the breakfast table. “Researching? This early?”

Sam shrugged, picking up books from Dean’s side of the table, clearing room for him. “I was hoping to find information on nephilim,” Sam explained. 

Dean paused mid-slurp, his eyes flickering up to his brother, suddenly very alert. “Oh, yeah? Did you find anything?”

Sam shook his head in frustration. “No. Information on them is ridiculously sparse. Just some folklore which varies pretty drastically depending on the source. And there’s no information about how they’re conceived, really.”

“Who cares how they were conceived?” Dean muttered, clearing his throat. “Shouldn’t we focus on what happened with Cas’ vessel? Or body, or whatever. And like, what to do once it’s here? And, and, like,” Dean seemed to struggle with wording, his mouth twisting a bit, “how we should, y’know... help Cas?”

Sam snorted. “I don’t know if they have a ‘What to Expect When You’re Expecting: Nephilim Edition’, Dean.”

“A what?” Dean asked, confused. 

“Never mind,” Sam muttered. He glanced at the entrance to the kitchen which lead to the bedrooms. “How’s Cas?”

Dean set down his mug and reached across the table to the small pile of waffles Sam had made hours ago. “He’s fine. Y’know, all things considered. Had a bit of a freak out last night, but he seemed fine by the time he got to sleep.”

Sam’s fork floated in the air above his food, forgotten for a second. “Did you stay with him?” 

Dean fumbled with his fork, dropping both the utensil and the pastry onto the table clumsily. Half of his fork ended up in a bowl of syrup. “I-I mean, yeah. But just until he went to sleep. He kind of had a bad night, dude. It’s not like it’s every day that you find out you’ve woken up in a girl version of your body, right? And then to find out you’re having a kid - a…a freaky angel-human-hybrid baby.” Dean inhaled sharply and licked his lips. “Anyone would want some company, you know?”

“Of course,” Sam agreed, picking up Dean’s fork and wiping off the syrup from the handle, passing it back to him. “You’re being a really good friend, Dean.”

Dean chuckled weakly and nodded. “Sure.”

Sam watched Dean take a small bite of the waffle and chew on it slowly. He chewed on it for much too long.

“You okay?”

“Yeah,” Dean nodded.

“Not up for waffles today?”

“No, they’re great. Just… I’m not hungry.”

Sam frowned. “I thought you were starved?”

Dean was saved from responding when Cas entered the kitchen, pausing a second, his eyes looking between the brothers. Sam looked up and smiled at him. “Hey Cas.”

Cas nodded in greeting and took a few steps into the kitchen. He tucked hair behind his ear and quietly padded over to the fridge. 

Sam realised Cas was embarrassed. Shy. 

“Cas, come sit,” he said, after an awkward minute where Cas peeled a banana over the sink and began eating it there, half-turned away from them. 

Cas sighed and walked over, dropping down beside Dean. He chewed slowly on the banana and stared down at the table. 

“How did everyone sleep?” he asked quietly. 

“Good.”

“Great.”

“That’s good.”

Dean slurped on coffee and clicked on his phone, tapping in his password and scrolling absentmindedly. 

Sam nudged Cas with his foot. “How’re you feeling?”

“Fine.”

But Cas had raised his eyes at least. Sam watched him notice the piles of books on the table and read the spines quickly. Cas licked his lips and lowered the half-eaten banana onto the table. 

“You're researching nephilim, then,” Cas observed, working through a lump in his throat. His hand flexed as his fingers rubbed at his palm on the table. 

Dean stopped scrolling. 

Sam tucked a rogue piece of fringe back from his face and he nodded, “Yeah, though surprise, surprise, humans haven't documented them very well.”

Cas pushed the banana away and pulled his other hand onto the table, rubbing at his palms. Blue eyes didn't leave the spines of the books, but he spoke to Sam all the same. 

“What do you want to know?”

Sam and Dean looked at each other. The first question was painfully obvious.

Sam scratched his cheek and cleared his throat. “Um, well, Cas...” Sam set his forearms on the table, his fingers linking. He flashed Cas another quick smile. “I think you know. I’m--we’re wondering how…this happened?”

“You said you were human,” Dean said stiffly, clicking off his phone screen. He paused, adding gruffly, “And a dude.”

Cas shifted uncomfortably. He reached up and flipped his hair to one side, pushing it behind his ear. It rebeled and some wavy locks fell back into his face.

“Like I said yesterday, as far as I knew, I was...on both counts,” he murmured as he broke off a small piece of banana with his fingers. “But if there was any grace left in me—and it appears there was—as an angel I was genderless,” he paused, eating the small piece of fruit. Swallowing, he added, “Am genderless. Neither male or female. What you perceived to be ‘me’ was simply a vessel.”

Sam scratched at his temple. He cleared his throat. “So how did it happen?”

Dean tossed his phone onto the table. Gruffly, he said, “I dunno if we need a play by play, Sam. I’m pretty sure everyone here knows how babies are made.”

Sam pursed his lips at his brother, his nostrils flaring. “Yeah, we know how babies are made, but I really doubt that’s how this happened, considering Cas was a guy—uh, his vessel was a guy at time of conception. I’m pretty sure something supernatural was at work, ‘cause last time I checked you couldn't get pregnant from ana—”

Cas diverted his eyes to the ceiling, blushing furiously, while Dean snapped a hand up quickly, pointing his finger towards Sam, saying in a rush, “Do not! Do not say that.”

Jeeze, since when was Dean scared of talking about anal? Usually Sam was the one begging Dean to shut up about it. But Cas looked about eighty-four years past embarrassed, so Sam veered subjects, deciding maybe it wasn’t important.

But Cas answered anyway, eyes anywhere but Sam. “It…doesn’t matter how it’s done, the, um, union. It only requires grace and--”

Sam was the one to hold up his hand this time, his eyes softening after he threw Dean a dirty look. “You don’t have to explain it, Cas. It’s not really important. That’s not what I meant, anyway. I think what I really meant to ask was _when_ did you, uh, conceive this thing? We’ve been down in the bunker since the fall of the angels.”

A peculiar look passed over Cas’ face and he glanced at Dean, who was ripping his waffle with his hands, pushing small pieces into his mouth and chewing slowly.

Sam carried on, shrugging. “Who could you have possibly conceived this with?”

He could tell he was making Cas uncomfortable. His blue eyes were looking somewhere over Sam’s shoulder. A pink tint was creeping over his cheeks again. Maybe, Sam thought, it was too private. 

“Maybe it was part of Metatron’s spell,” Dean suggested, his mouth full of waffle. He raised his coffee to his lips and took a long drink.

“What—like it’s Metatron’s baby?” Sam asked, sounding grossed out. “ _Ew_.”

Cas’ eyes went impossibly wide and his mouth dropped open. Dean choked on his coffee, spitting it back out into the cup. He clapped at his chest. 

“Oh, Sam. Gross!” Dean exclaimed, wiping his chin. “That’s not what I meant! I meant like, maybe Metatron left a little bit of grace behind on purpose. What did he say to you again, Cas?”

With a shaky inhale, Cas repeated Metatron’s orders, “ _Live this new human life to the fullest. Fall in love. Make a baby.”_

“Motherfucker,” Dean hissed into his cup, though he stopped it at his lips and cringed at the backwash. He set the cup down and crossed his arms across his chest, leaning on the table. “Clearly he meant for this to happen.”

“Perhaps,” Cas agreed quietly, looking resigned. “If he meant for a nephilim to be conceived, he knew the wrath that I would feel from Heaven. Perhaps it was his way of having me executed.”

“Why wouldn’t he just kill you right away while he had you there?” Sam asked.

Cas finally made full eye contact with Sam. His eyes were sad but had a spark of anger. “It wouldn’t make a good story, would it?”

The silence that followed was heavy.

Cas continued. “That death would have been quick and anti-climactic. This way, I’m reviled, humiliated, and the Host would surely drag out my death.” He ran a hand over his lips, fingers lingering on his smooth jaw. “The risk for the creation of more nephilim are high, especially with the angels trapped down here on earth. They would jump at the opportunity to use me as an example, as a warning to others who would fall into the same temptation.”

“And what about Abaddon?” Sam asked, rubbing at the creases in his forehead. “Why does she want you? What would she do with a nephilim?”

Cas laughed a bit under his breath. The sound was bitter. “Nothing good. I imagine she believes she could use me to breed with her demons, which wouldn’t work, but don’t believe she knows that. Or perhaps she wants to use the nephilim for a spell like Metatron did.”

“Maybe she wants to make the nephilim go dark side,” Sam suggested, his tone sad and low. He didn’t miss the knowing glance from Dean.

Dean finally turned to Cas, his eyes searching Cas’ soft features. “Whatever she wants, she won’t get it, Cas.” 

Sam couldn’t believe a baby was causing so much chaos. So far there hadn’t been any indication from Cas that this baby was evil or anything. Sam tapped at the table and asked carefully, “Why are the angels angry?”

“Yeah,” Dean asked, shaking his head, eyes fixed on Cas. “Why are nephilim hated so much, Cas?”

Cas looked down at his hands, rolling his tongue in his mouth. He took a long moment to think about something, then he turned his face to stare at Dean. They gazed at each other.

Slowly, Castiel explained.

“It is not the children that are hated, it’s what they stand for. Nephilim are created when an angel and a human lay together.” Cas paused, his eyes sweeping over Dean’s features carefully. Cas look a deep breath. “They are created when an angel loves a human more than he loves God.”

***

They never did find out who Cas slept with after the fall. They definitely didn’t find out who he was in love with. The topic seemed touchy. And Sam couldn’t help but feel some questions had been deflected, but he and Dean had months to get answers, so he let the topic go for the time being.

While Sam had been concerned about what would change around the bunker, nothing much was different than before, other than the fact that there was a six-foot-tall brunette girl walking about their bunker dressed in men’s clothing. Hell, if it wasn’t for the lack of stubble, an adam’s apple, a woman’s voice (though still raspy), and a long mane of thick brown hair that seemed to get longer by the day, there wasn’t much change in Cas at all. 

He hadn’t known what he expected. Maybe for Cas to waddle around in a nightgown and whine about sore ankles and mood swings - which was stupid because Cas didn’t look different at all. For the next few days after their run in with the angels, Sam caught himself eyeing Cas when he walked around, looking for some kind of bump, but there was basically nothing. So much nothing that he caught himself wondering irrationally if the nephilim was even there in the first place.

After a few days of watching Cas for changes and finding none, it occurred to him that he actually knew nothing about pregnant people at all. He was being kind of awkward around Cas, but Dean? Dean seemed weirdly comfortable. Quickly, it occurred to Sam that Dean knew a thing or two about pregnant people. When pressed about it, Dean’s face went a bit dark and he murmured, “Lisa’s sister. She was pregnant when I lived with them. She’d...visit a lot.”

Sam knew not to bring it up again. He hadn’t meant to bring up Lisa, it had been an accident. Still, Dean didn’t speak to him for the rest of that day and Sam didn’t push him to open up about it. The apple pie life Dean’d left behind had clearly left a wound, a wound so painful that it still stung like it was fresh.

He caught Dean watching Cas and being weirdly nice to him, like putting his hand on his elbow when they brushed past each other and always asking if he needed anything when he went to grab snacks from the kitchen. Even when Cas said no, Dean always brought him a glass of water when he sat back down at the library table. A pillow randomly appeared on Cas’ customary library chair one morning, and a case of ginger ale was found under the counter in the kitchen one day after a grocery run.

He was glad Dean knew stuff about this because Sam was way out of his element. They’d never really known anyone with babies, let alone known anyone pregnant.

They still researched and went on supply runs (i.e. groceries and fast food recon), and still tried to work on the tablets with Kevin via Skype calls. He still wouldn’t tell them where he was, but it was a consolation to see him alive and the tablets still in his possession. 

After a while, Sam was almost convinced that their lives weren’t actually going to change much until Irv called with a lead on Abaddon. 

He clicked off the phone and walked from the kitchen into the library, where Cas and Dean were poured over an encyclopedia of ancient runes.

“I think that’s it, Cas,” Dean muttered, leaning over the back of Cas’ chair to point at a symbol in a book by Cas’ elbow. “That looks like the symbol Kev wanted.”

Cas’ lip tilted down into an annoyed frown. “That book is upside down, Dean.”

“Well,” Dean sighed, leaning back and raising a bottle of beer to his lips, “it looks a lot like it, just saying.”

“Why would Metatron write the angel tablet upside down?”

“Don’t ask me how he writes his crap, the dude is eccentric.”

“Dean, that’s not even Elamite, that’s Enochian and it says ‘cheese’.”

“ _‘Down were cast the angels from paradise’_ ,” Dean joked, “ _and then God said, ‘Behold; cheese!’_ ”. 

“It doesn’t say _that_ ,” Cas scoffed, sounding appalled.

Sam sat down at the chair opposite them. Despite bad news about Abaddon dancing on the tip of his tongue, he still smiled, watching Dean grin against the mouth of his beer and Cas rolling his eyes, closing the Enochian book with a flick of his wrist.

“Sup, Sammy?” Dean nodded, sliding down into his seat, his arm resting loftily on the back of Cas’ chair.

Sam opened his laptop and his smile faded. “Irv called.”

Dean’s hand slipped off the chair and he leaned forward, crossing his arms on the table. Seriously, he asked, “What’s going on?”

“He’s emailing me video now,” Sam replied. He opened up his email portal and the newest message in his inbox. Once the attachment loaded, he turned the laptop around, so Cas and Dean could see the image.

Abaddon’s face grinned up from underneath a bus driver cap, her smarmy face gloating and smug.

“This is from a crime scene at a Point Loma in San Diego.”

Dean raised an eyebrow. “The naval base?”

Sam nodded. “Affirmative. So, get this; three soldiers go missing, then three dead bodies turn up on a bus in the middle of the base. Security cameras got these shots of the three soldiers plus Abaddon leaving the base, but they’ve disappeared since. No one has heard from them, not friends or family. They vanished.”

“What do we do about this?” Cas asked, brows furrowed.

Sam turned the laptop back around and shrugged a shoulder. “We go to San Diego, we check it out. Who knows what she did to these bodies and who knows what she plans to do with the soldiers.”

Dean nodded, leaning back in his chair. He tilted his head up at Sam. “What’s the drive look like?”

With a few quick taps on the computer, Sam pulled up a map. “About a days drive, give or take an hour.” He looked up at Dean over the laptop and smirked. “Could be an hour and a half if we fly though.”

“That seems quicker,” Cas said, turning to Dean. “We should do that.”

Sam grinned, but Dean scoffed and said, “Okay, a) no, we’re not flying, Sam, you jerk. And b) there is no ‘we’, Cas.”

Cas leaned away from Dean, looking offended. “What do you mean?”

Uh oh. 

In private, Sam and Dean had briefly talked about what would happen with Cas if they had to go on hunts, but Sam hadn’t foreseen it being a problem quite so soon. Needless to say, Cas did not look impressed.

Dean fixed Cas with a look that said, ‘dude, really?’. Cas shot his own version of the look right back, with eyes narrowed and his mouth pressed into a thin line.

Dean gestured to Cas, waving his hand up and down. “Firstly, we don’t have any IDs that match how you look right now, and secondly… well, you know. You shouldn’t be hunting.”

“Why?” Cas asked, eyes squinting so much the fiery blue hardly peeked through.

Dean licked his lips. He looked like he struggled with the words, then he said bluntly, “Because you’re pregnant, that’s why.”

The p-word. None of them had said it yet, which seemed fairly ridiculous. Cas was pregnant. But it felt weird to say and it was a weird concept in general. That being said, while he wasn’t showing now, he would be showing soon, and they needed to wrap their minds around it.

Cas looked a little unsettled at the word too, looking away and licking his lips slowly, stalling on what to say.

“It doesn’t matter,” he replied, turning back to look at Dean with brows raised. Sam thought he looked a little defiant. “I can handle myself.”

“Said every hunter ever before they got stabbed to death,” Dean retorted. “We’re not talking about this, Cas. You’re staying.”

“Why?” Cas fired back. “You heard the angels, Dean. There is an ancient energy protecting me. Strategically, my presence may work in your favour.”

“Uh, _no_ ,” Dean said with a note of finality. “You’ve got baby brain if you think we’re letting you cross the line of fire! You’re not _bait,_ Cas!” Cas and Sam turned to each other mouthing ‘baby brain?’ at the same time.

Dean plowed on, ignoring them. “We have no idea what that blast was or who did it so that’s not something we’re gonna count on for next time, okay?”

“And you think this is your call?” Cas challenged, his lips pursing in defiance. 

“Guys, I was thinking about that,” Sam interjected, hoping to defuse some tension. He looked from Dean to Cas, who turned to him wearing twin expressions of anger. Sam gestured to Cas with a pointed finger. “What if that blast was grace?”

“Grace?” Dean and Cas repeated in tandem.

A small smile appeared on Sam’s lips against his will. “Yeah. What if it was the nephilim protecting Cas?”

Dean’s mouth dropped open and he gaped like a fish for a second. Cas’ brows shot up and quickly his hand went down to his stomach. Something fluttered in Sam’s heart for a second. It was the first time Cas had done that.

“That’s not possible,” Cas growled, his tone instantly defusing the warm and fuzzies that Sam had been feeling. Cas looked very suddenly uncomfortable, his eyes a bit wide, looking around the tabletop like the answers would be written right on there. “Nephilim haven’t ever been known to have powers like that.”

“How do you know?” Dean asked.

Cas stared hard at the table top. “Angels have been killing nephilim and their celestial parent for eons. They’ve always been destroyed.”

“While it’s cooking?” Dean asked, brows raised.

Cas looked up at Dean, brows furrowed. “No, the angels didn’t cook any babies.”

Sam pretended to scratch his cheek to hide a smile, while Dean looked at the ceiling as if it would grant him patience.

“No, Cas. I mean, were they killed in or out of the womb?”

“Oh.” Cas stared at Dean while he thought, chewing on his lip. Then Cas blinked and looked away, shaking his head. “I…can’t recall now. I can only seem to remember them being killed after birth, at the end of a manhunt.” 

Cas looked up at Sam, eyes suddenly bright. Sam thought maybe he looked a bit hopeful. “You may have a point, Sam. Perhaps we’re--I’m being protected.”

Dean glared at Sam while Cas seemed to lurk on the border of a smile. 

Shaking his head, Dean finished his beer. “Doesn’t matter. It’s a theory, that’s all. Cas stays behind.”

Cas’ hands balled into fists and Sam could feel the tension build up again. 

“Okay,” Sam nodded. “Cas stays.”

The look of betrayal Cas sent his way was so sharp Sam briefly became worried that the nephilim would smite him too just for pissing Cas off.

“Why is everyone making decisions for me like I’m not here?” Cas said through his teeth.

“Great.” Dean leaned back in his chair, yanking out his phone. “I’ll call Irv, tell him we’ll be there in a day--”

“You’re staying too,” Sam stated simply, closing his laptop with a firm click and standing. He tucked the laptop under his arm. While Dean scoffed at him and a smile returned to Cas’ lips, Sam shrugged unapologetically at his brother. “We’re wading in unknown territory with the nephilim, Dean. Someone should probably stay here with Cas, just in case.”

Dean made a noise of disbelief in his throat. “I’m not staying here with preggers while you face Abaddon alone!”

Sam’s eyebrows shot up, and Cas turned to Dean slowly with a smitey look on his face.

“I’m not facing Abaddon, I’m just checking out the crime scene. And I won’t be alone,” Sam rationalized, turning on his heel, making his exit. “I’ll be with Irv.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Leave me those sweet, sweet comments. Love me some sweet, sweet comments.


	6. The Strawberry

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ooops, I got impatient. Here, take a new chapter. xD
> 
> Thanks again to MalMuses for the beta edit. <3

“Dean?” 

After arriving back from San Diego, Sam trudged down the iron steps into the bunker, craning his neck around to see if there were any signs of his brother and friend. He slid his duffel bag off his shoulder, letting it land with a thud on the floor at the base of the steps.

“Cas?”

“Cas is busy,” Dean called out as he appeared from the hallway leading from the bedrooms. 

Sam climbed the steps into the hallway and grinned at Dean, who returned the gesture. They quickly hugged.

“How’s it been with preggers?” Sam asked with amusement, pulling away.

Dean snorted. “Yeah, I’d keep the ‘preggers’ to a minimum. He got punchy after the third time I called him that. And he’s pretty strong for a girl.”

“Dean, pretty much all the girls we know can kick our asses.”

Dean made a jokingly thoughtful face, then nodded with his eyes wide. “True.”

“Anyway,” Sam huffed, following Dean when he led him into the kitchen, “what’s Cas so busy with?” 

“Oh,” Dean laughed, but Sam thought he sounded a little stressed. Dean tossed two crushed cans of ginger ale in the recycling bin and turned around, leaning on the counter. “He’s busy puking his guts out.”

“Oh,” Sam cringed. “Ugh.”

Dean rubbed his forehead and grinned, though again, he looked a bit stressed. “Turns out morning sickness? Yeah, not just in the mornings. It’s in the morning, and in the afternoon, and in the evening. It’s before meals and after meals, and while you’re sitting doing nothing in the library or watching a movie. Sometimes, it’s because the bacon smells _too much like bacon._ ”

Sam found himself laughing and Dean shook his head, staring at the ceiling. 

“Oh, yeah, laugh it up. Laugh it up because we aren’t allowed to have bacon in this bunker for the next five to seven months. Laugh now while it’s still funny, chuckles.”

“Oh boy.” Sam scratched his cheek, shrugging. “He seemed fine when I left.”

Dean groaned as he yanked open the fridge door. “It’s been a really long four days, Sam.”

“When did it start?”

Cas entered the kitchen, looking miserable. A haphazard, uncentered ponytail flopped to the side of his head, wisps of hair cascaded around his face and shoulders. “About twenty minutes after you left.”

“Hey, Cas,” Sam greeted with a smile.

Cas grunted as he walked past Sam and dragged his feet over to Dean, who was already waiting with a ginger ale in his hand. Cas accepted it gratefully, holding it in his hands like it was precious. 

Dean smirked at Sam, who watched with his eyebrows raised as Cas dropped down onto the bench at the dinner table and put his head down, wild brown waves pooling over the table top.

“Cas, you can’t sleep there,” Dean said mechanically.

Cas lifted his head and glared at the coffee machine across the room.

Dean turned to Sam, looking torn between amusement and exasperation. With a scrunch of his nose, Dean explained, “He falls asleep everywhere.”

“Stop talking about me like I’m not here.”

“Sorry.” Dean held out a small green can to Sam. “Ginger ale?”

Sam guffawed, but accepted the can. He sat down across from Cas and smiled, while Cas stared at him miserably.

“So it’s been rough, huh?”

“I can’t eat bacon anymore,” Cas rasped. “I vomit every hour, if not twice an hour. It’s disgusting and painful. My back has begun hurting no matter what I do, and to be quite honest, I would much rather be sleeping right now.”

Dean sat down at the table as well, bringing a box of soda crackers with him. He passed a stack to Cas, who took them with a sigh. Dean shoved an entire one in his mouth. “The baby is kind of a dick, Cas. It’ll explode anyone who tries to hurt you but then makes plans to have you projectile vomit all day for, what, like three months?”

“Dude,” Sam laughed against the rim of his soda can. “You can’t just call babies dicks.”

“It can’t hear me,” Dean muttered, waving Sam’s remark off with a soda cracker. 

“What happened with Abaddon?” Cas asked, switching the subject, taking a bite out of the soda cracker like it was torture.

“Right,” Sam said. “So, the bodies on the bus? They were actually meatsuits, possessed for years then dumped for stronger, better bodies. Our guess is she’s trying to infiltrate the military.”

“Yeah,” Dean commented through a mouthful of crackers. “You told us that on the phone. Did you end up running into Abaddon?”

Sam nodded. “She’d kidnapped some hunters, hoping to draw us to her. She was really pissed Cas wasn’t with me,” he added with a sigh. “Anyway, some angels showed up and scared her off.”

“Angels?” Cas asked.

“I didn’t get their names. I didn’t know who they were.” Sam admitted, frowning.

“What did they want?” Castiel asked, straightening up in his seat.

Sam’s hazel eyes swept over Cas’ expectant features, noticing he’d managed to change a little bit more over the last few days in Sam’s absence. His features were softer, more feminine. His skin was smoother, healthier. As his tongue swept out over his lips, Sam noticed they didn’t look dry anymore, and had filled out a bit. 

Sam felt a pang in his heart. He didn’t want to tell Cas what the angels had said.

“They wanted to pass on a message,” Sam replied quietly. Dread filled his chest.

“Well, what is it?” Dean pressed when Sam took a second too long of a silence.

The bottom of Sam’s soda can clicked against the tabletop as he set it down, buying an extra second of time.

“They said,” Sam said gravely, wincing, “that if you didn’t surrender yourself before the birth of the abomination, they’d hunt down and kill the one you love. They…they said they would crucify the human sinner, to display them for everyone to see as an example. And, uh, they said that their soul would never find a home in Heaven,” Sam ran a hand over his mouth. “They said they’d cast them down to Hell. Forever.”

The grave message ended in silence. Dean put down a handful of crackers and rubbed his hands over his thighs. He looked exhausted all of a sudden, his eyes turning down towards the table. 

Cas was staring at Sam, his eyes wide. Then he abruptly got up and crossed the kitchen, leaning over the sink. Dean propped his elbow up on the table, scrubbing his fingers through his hair, his eyes sliding shut. 

Cas barely had time to pull his pony tail out of the way before he was throwing up pitifully into the sink.

“I’m sorry,” Sam said sincerely, shaking his head, apologizing for upsetting Cas.

Dean exhaled slowly through his mouth. For a second it seemed like the vomiting stopped, then Cas’ shoulders jerked forward again. Dean cringed as they listened to Cas puke into the sink.

“Welcome back home, Sam.”

***

Cas was surprisingly receptive to the suggestion that he hang tight in the bunker until the nephilim arrived. It came as a surprise to Sam considering how combative Cas had been about being left behind on the Abaddon hunt. Perhaps the threat from the angels was a threat Cas wasn’t taking lightly.

They didn’t slow down on researching ways to re-open Heaven though. Even with Heaven trying to murder Cas, he hadn’t seemed to let go of the desire to save them. 

Dean also hadn’t forgotten about Abaddon. She was ramping up her forces. Two more military bases were hi-jacked, and the missing soldier count was up to forty people. Sam thought she might’ve been sending a message to them, still pissed off that Cas hadn’t joined Sam on the investigation in San Diego. They kept getting messages from hunters who encountered groups of demons, all with the same message: Abaddon wants to see the Winchesters. She wants them to bring her their angel.

It was concerning that Abaddon now had her sights set on Cas too. Although, during their first encounter with her, they hadn’t known why she’d been so fascinated with him, it was unnervingly clear why she wanted to see him. Between the angels and the demons, it seemed a nephilim was something both sides wanted their nasty little paws on. Sam shuddered at the plans Abaddon had for a nephilim. He was sure there were all kinds of ways she’d tear into Cas’ kid, all kinds of spells she could use the him or her for. He was also sure her intentions for Cas in general were less than wholesome. He remembered the hungry, lustful way she’d looked at Cas in the diner. He vividly remembered the veiled threat of featuring Cas as the main event for a demonic gang bang.

Sam didn’t blame Cas for seeming uninterested and unexcited about the nephilim. It already had a target on its back and it wasn’t even the size of an olive yet.

Sam knew it was the size of an olive because Dean made it a point to update them every week as to which food the baby was compared to.

During week ten, Dean’s phone went off. The sound of Led Zeppelin erupting from his phone made him jump, tearing him away from _Magical Properties of Central Africa’s Wild Herbs_ \- what he called ‘light reading’, to give him a break from tablet research.

He slid the phone out of his pocket, setting down a dusty looking volume. With a grin, he elbowed Cas, who had been falling asleep on his hand in the middle of reading about the history of proto-form Elamite. 

“Hey Cas,” Dean grinned, turning his phone towards his bleary-eyed woman-shaped friend. “The baby is the size of a strawberry.”

From his resting place on his hand, Cas turned his eyes up at Dean, looking uninterested. “Last week it was the size of a raspberry. That hardly seems different.”

“Maybe they mean those non-organic freak strawberries that are the size of baseballs,” Dean pointed out, turning the phone back to himself so he could gaze at the animation of a strawberry dancing on his phone. “That’d be kinda cool.”

“I wish it would hurry up and grow,” Cas growled, flipping a page of the boring book he was reading. “I don’t want to throw up anymore. I would like to enjoy food without having to taste it again later on the way back up.”

“Don’t worry, Cas,” Dean reassured distractedly, tapping away at his phone, “the morning sickness will go away in a few weeks.”

Cas scowled at him and narrowed his eyes as if asking Dean how the hell he knew that. 

Sam snorted, eyes flickering up to Dean over his laptop. “You’re a pregnancy expert now, Dean?”

“I got an app,” Dean said with a shit-eating grin. “It’s fun, like a dumb little game. It gives me notifications about how fruit-y the kid is and what it looks like and stuff.”

“Wow,” Sam laughed.

His brother huffed, glancing at Cas and Sam indignantly. “Someone has around here has to act happy and give a shit about this kid. I mean, Cas still calls it ‘this thing’ for fuck’s sake.”

“ _This thing_ is giving me a lot of grief,” Cas muttered, lifting his head from his hand.

“It’ll all be worth it,” Dean said, getting to his feet. He grabbed Cas’ empty cans of ginger ale from the table and shook them at Cas and Sam. “I’m gonna grab my laptop. I can stop by the kitchen on the way back. Refills? Sam? Cas? Ginger ale?”

Sam and Cas shook their heads. Dean shrugged in response and disappeared into the war room. 

Alone in the library, Sam turned to Cas and smiled kindly. Cas smiled back but it was half-hearted. He went back to reading his book.

Sam didn’t go back to what he was doing. He gazed at his friend, noting the dejected look on his face and in the slump of his shoulders.

“What’s up, Cas?”

Blue eyes turned up to him and in a tone that didn’t convince Sam that Cas was oblivious, Cas said, “Nothing. Why do you ask?”

Sam raised a skeptical eyebrow at him. “Dean’s kind of right, Cas. You keep calling it ‘the thing’.”

“So?” Cas flipped another page, without reading the one before it. “You keep calling the thing ‘it’.”

“I mean, I know the timing is kind of bad. And I know this was probably one of the last things you ever wanted,” Sam closed his laptop, hoping to indicate to Cas that he wasn’t going to let this conversation go. “But now that it’s happened aren’t you, y’know, a little bit excited?”

He expected Cas to roll his eyes and give him a gruff answer - something tactless and grumpy. He didn’t expect Cas to inhale shakily and avert his eyes.

“Sam…” Cas looked like he struggled with his words, his mouth opening and closing. His throat worked a bit and Sam worried for a moment that Cas was gonna be sick, but then he shook his head slowly and met his eye. “I won’t survive this.”

Sam felt a streak of icy alarm shoot down his spine. He shook his head, tilting it a bit at Cas, his brows knitted in confusion.

“Cas, you know we won’t let the angels, or the demons, get to you, right? I mean, the bunker is safe, if you stay down here. And Dean, well…he’s your best friend. I am too, I hope you know that. But Dean, he _really_ cares about you. He wouldn’t let anyone or anything hurt you or your kid. I wouldn’t either.”

Cas casted a quick look towards the war room, eyes looking worried. With regret, Sam noticed Cas’ eyes shining a bit. He looked back at Sam with wide eyes and leaned forward, explaining quietly, “No, you don’t understand. Human mothers don’t typically survive the birth of a nephilim.”

A terrible sense of dread settled in the pit of Sam’s stomach. He sat completely still except for the fist that curled in his lap. “How do you know that?”

“The human body can’t handle the power of nephilim birth. There have never been records of nephilim with surviving human mothers.”

It was Sam’s turn to feel like throwing up. “But you said angels had hunted down and persecuted mothers for giving birth to nephilim? You said--”

“Yes,” Cas nodded gravely. “Angels, Sam. Those mothers were angels. They were persecuted and hunted after birth because, like I told you before, they committed an act of treason against the Host by loving a human more than God.”

Sam was shocked into silence. This was crushing. 

Dean would be crushed.

Cas went on, eyes searching Sam’s face sadly. “When they are sired by man, the celestial mothers survive. They survive because they are made of grace, they still have their own intact after the birth.” Cas closed the book he’d been ‘reading’ and pushed it away, crossing his arms over his chest, hands curling around his arms above his elbows. “Human mothers… Without grace, they are mere vessels until the gestation is complete. They die, Sam. They always die.”

Sam searched Cas’ face as well, feeling a bit choked up. “But…but, Cas, you said there may have been some grace left in you…”

He trailed off as Cas smiled unhappily. “Whatever speck of grace was in there served to bring the nephilim into existence, to sustain its angelic development for the next few months. The grace is being used up, Sam. It’s being consumed. I’m sorry.”

The corners of Sam’s eyes burned, and he had to look away for a second, his chest feeling tight. 

“You haven’t told Dean yet,” Sam murmured. It was statement not a question. He forced himself to get a grip, he run his hand under his nose, sniffling, looking back at Cas, who was still staring at him, eyes a brilliant blue and glistening.

The unhappy smile faltered and turned down slowly, a subtle tremble flitting over Cas’ mouth.

“No,” Cas breathed, gazing at Sam. “Not yet.”

They heard footsteps. The fridge opened and closed a few rooms over.

“You have to tell him,” Sam whispered roughly, leaning forward a bit. It made him feel guilty to see Cas look like this - ashamed and upset - but Dean was his brother. Dean deserved to know. Dean was the only one happy about this situation. Dean was the only one who saw a baby-shaped light at the end of this confusing, dark tunnel. Sam knew Dean. He knew how he felt about family. Sam had never known an apple-pie life, but Dean had, and he knew Dean craved it so badly, no matter how many times he had unconvincingly said ‘that’s not our life’ over the years. He knew Dean saw a future that involved him and Cas and Sam and some kid living in the bunker. He saw it in Dean’s eyes every time Dean told them what kind of stupid fruit the baby was proportional to. 

It was unfair. It was rage-inducing.

“I will,” Cas whispered quickly, his eyes darting to the war room. “D-Don’t tell him. I’ll do it when I’m ready. I promise, Sam. I promise I’ll tell him.”

“Why are you dragging this out?” Sam hissed. “Just tell him!”

“Please, Sam--”

After quickly opening the book in front of him again, Cas bowed his head. His hair, which was flowing over one shoulder, blocked his face from Dean as he walked into the room again. 

Dean set a glass of water down by Cas hand, patting him on the shoulder as he settled back down beside him. Cas didn’t look up from the book he was pretending to read. Sam noticed his mouth trembling a bit and a miserable sheen in his eyes. 

Cas rested his head in his hand again, further shielding his face from Dean.

Dean didn’t notice. He was busy tugging open his laptop and cracking open a beer.

For the first time, Sam noticed that around Dean’s wrists were three different coloured hair ties. Brown hair was tangled in tiny bunches around some of them, a few thin strands floating through the air when Dean moved his hands. 

A lump formed in Sam’s throat and anger bubbled in his chest.

“Hey Sam, did you manage to find out anything new about nephilim?” Dean asked offhandedly, sipping on his beer. He waved his hand at his computer. “I found some wiki about angels this morning, but it turned out to be some fanfiction-wiki bullshit.”

“No,” Sam replied flatly, eyes dark as they stared at Cas. “Nothing new.”

Dean elbowed Cas, pulling out his phone again.

“I thought about what you said. Okay, so yeah, a strawberry is like, really small and who cares, right? But check it out,” Dean turned the phone towards Cas again, snorting, “it literally says underneath, ‘ _your baby’s little heart is fully formed._ ’ That’s a lot more badass-sounding than ‘it’s a strawberry’. They should probably lead with that.”

Cas nodded, not uttering a word or lifting his head from his hand.

Dean pulled his phone back and muttered, “Oookay. Not a fan. Gotcha. I’ll stick to the fruit.”

Sam watched a tear leak out of the corner of Cas’ eye and roll down his face. Cas sat in silence for a few long moments, then he stood and walked out the room, his head bowed, his hair flapping behind him, a hand swiping at his face.

As he disappeared around the corner, Dean turned to Sam and shook his head, rolling his eyes. 

“Jeez,” he snorted, scowling at his phone as he scrolled his thumb over it. “Would it kill him to care a little bit?”

Sam’s heart sunk, staring at the place where Cas had been sitting. 

Yeah, he thought in realization, it probably would.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh shiiiiiiit. Developments!
> 
> Let me know what you're thinkin' in the comment section. ;)


	7. The Avocado

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is unbeta'd, so any mistakes are mine.
> 
> Enjoy! :) It's a long one.

At week 17, Cas’ baby was the size of an avocado.

Their pregnant, lady-shaped friend was patiently tolerating the fruit comparisons every week. He even smiled a bit on week 16 when the baby was the size of an avocado and Dean joked, “Stay away from Sam this week, Cas. He’ll try to steal your baby, put it on toast and sprinkle it with flax seed.”

Dean still didn’t know about Cas’ potential death sentence. Several times over the past month and a half, Sam had needled Cas about it. The first few times, Cas had claimed he wasn’t ready yet, then as Sam grew more persistent, Cas told him that Dean was allowed to be excited. While Cas might die, the child would survive and would be in their care, in Dean’s care. According to Cas, his death wouldn’t matter; there would be a new member of their small clan and Dean would still have something to be excited about. 

“Let him be happy, Sam!” Cas had hissed at Sam one night as they bickered in the kitchen, whispering to each other fervently. “Something good has to come from this, Sam. Why not allow something positive to come from this entire miserable experience? He will suffer grief either way, Sam. Why make it premature?”

Sam knew he had a point. Kinda. Still, Cas would have to pry the injustice and this mendacity from his cold, dead hands. When the lie got too involved, when things went too far, Sam would out him. He wouldn’t hesitate.

He almost betrayed Castiel’s secret during “Avocado Week”, as Dean coined it. Because Dean had been doing his duty to be a good friend by getting Cas ginger ale, and actually tying Cas’ hair up into a ponytail when Cas spontaneously threw up in different garbage bins all over the bunker. Avocado Week made it clear that Dean wasn’t just helping Cas because it was the right thing to do - he was _invested_. 

Just as Sam suspected, Dean was getting attached to the kid like it was new family. Like it was _his_ family.

The reason for Sam nearly outing Cas was random and unexpected. It had started out innocently enough with a movie night, an excuse for them all to relax. 

Dean had let Cas take up the whole couch, instructing him to lie down. Cas had been bitching about back and abdominal pain for weeks now. While Cas had argued at first, he followed the order and ended up looking much happier lying on his side, even taking a pillow Dean wordlessly gave to him to put between his legs. Dean sat on the floor by Cas’ head, while Sam took the armchair adjacent to them. 

They picked a horror movie called ‘The Quiet Place’, which revolved around a family who had to live in silence for fear of alerting a monster that prowled the woods around their home. It was surprisingly good - even despite Cas interrupting occasionally to point out the plot inconsistencies, address ways the family could have strategized better, and explain the fact that “sound doesn’t work like that”.

The lead actress in the movie was pregnant. When Cas pointed it out, Dean snorted and said, “Look; it’s you, baby mama.”

He was too busy chuckling at the TV to catch Cas’ eye roll.

Near the end of the movie, the woman gave birth. All three audience members watched in horror as she tried to stifle her screams, trying not to alert the monster as to where she was hiding. She writhed in an empty bathtub, whimpering, blood pooling at the bottom of the white tub.

“That looks awful,” Cas breathed, his face twisted into a grimace, and Sam was torn between looking amused and understanding the gravity of Cas’ horror.

“That,” Dean pointed at the TV, “is what drugs are for.”

Cas was shaking his head against the pillow, eyes still wide and nervous under furrowed brows. “I sincerely hope it’s not like that.”

Dean coughed a little bit as he tried to laugh and take a swig of beer at the same time. “Sorry to break it to you, Cas, but there’s only one way for that thing to come out.”

Sam and Dean exchanged the same look of curiosity and slight horror while Cas squinted at the movie suspiciously.

“Uh,” Dean muttered, “that _is_ how nephilim come out, right? It doesn’t like…come out of your mouth or something, right?”

“Dean!” Cas exclaimed in shock.

“I was wondering the same thing,” Sam admitted. “Well, not the mouth part. The birth part.”

They glanced at Cas.

Cas sighed, looking exhausted at the thought. “I imagine it would happen the regular way, yes.”

“Gross,” Dean whispered.

Sam noticed Cas put a hand on his stomach, a rare gesture. The movement gave Sam an idea of how big the bump was. They never saw it because Cas was always wearing Dean’s button downs, which were loose on his smaller frame. While he knew the truth behind what would happen to Cas eventually, the sight of the bump did make him strangely warm. It was so small…and there was a baby the size of an avocado in there.

“Can we stop talking about this?” Cas asked, sliding his hand down the small bump, pulling one leg up, cuddling further into the couch. “I’m uncomfortable.”

“Don’t worry, Cas,” Dean chuckled. “I doubt we’ll make you go through labour in a bathtub.”

It appeared they’d given up all pretenses of watching the movie. 

“Where…uh…where are we gonna,” Dean paused, swallowing and twisting around a bit to stare at Cas, whose face tilted up to meet Dean’s eye. Their faces were fairly close. “Uh, y’know, where are you gonna… I mean, we’re going to a hospital, right?”

Cas tilted his head back down, looking away. 

“Sure,” he murmured quietly. “Wherever.”

“We can’t go to a hospital, guys,” Sam interjected, sounding scandalized. “The demons will find us almost instantly and the angels will tracking us down eventually.”

Dean twisted his body back towards Sam, shaking his head incredulously. “What, so we’re just gonna deliver a baby down here? Do I look like the kind of guy who delivers babies? Do I look like the kind of guy who wants to see a vagina -- _Cas’ vagina --_ all,” Dean spread his fingers in the air, “big and stuff. I’m not a baby-delivering kind of guy.”

“Please stop talking about my vagina,” Cas breathed, his eyes wide in horror. 

Dean and Cas looked equally shell shocked, though Dean went on. “The angels aren’t a concern. They have no wings. If we can outrun them, then we’re golden. We just gotta be smart. As for the demons, we can throw them off our trail with some voodoo.”

“Like what?” Sam asked irately. 

Dean waved his hand, pulling his beer up to his lips. “Been workin’ on something. I’ll be done real soon. Maybe by tomorrow. You let me handle this.”

“Tomorrow?” Cas lifted his head. “You have several months before I have to go anywhere near a hospital, Dean. Whatever you’re doing doesn’t have to be sorted by tomorrow.”

“Well, actually,” Dean shrugged, a subtle flush colouring his cheeks, “you’ve been complaining about those pains you were having and, uh, well, I’ve been thinking we should take you to a doctor.”

Sam and Cas exchanged skeptical looks.

“I’m sure it’s fine,” Sam dismissed.

Cas’ hand fisted around the material of his shirt and pushed against the bump, a wince fluttering over his face. Okay, Sam thought guiltily, maybe it wasn’t fine.

“You’re being a real ass, Sam,” Dean scolded. His bottle made a sharp, hollow noise as he set it on the coffee table. “Honestly, that stupid app has been telling me that we should’ve been to a doctor weeks ago.”

“Why?” Cas asked, his eyes narrowed at the side of Dean’s head.

“Pregnant people go see doctors all the time!” Dean rationalized. “And, well, they do those ultrasound things and...don’t you want to see it, Cas?”

Cas readjusted his head on the pillow, watching the movie, his eyes suddenly shining wetly. 

“There’s no point,” Cas said very quietly. “We have avocados in the kitchen that I can look at for an approximation.”

Dean laughed, shocked and amused by Cas’ dry joke, shaking his head, reaching for another unopened beer on the table. He missed Cas reach up and brush away a tear tangling from his dark lashes.

Sam’s stomach twisted uncomfortably. 

He wasn’t an idiot. Every time they got close to talking to Cas about his relationship to ‘the thing’, he got very subtly upset. Dean missed it because Cas had a poker face that had survived his fall from grace, and honestly, Dean wasn’t thinking to look for heart break in Cas’ face. 

Knowing what he knew, Sam was constantly aware of it. It was slowly becoming abundantly clear that Cas was making an attempt to purposely hold himself at an arm's length from the baby. And he was failing.

While Sam already thought it was stupid to leave the bunker, when he spoke, he said what he did to save Cas some angst.

“It’s not a good idea, Dean.”

“Shut it, Sam,” Dean retorted, lowering his beer and wiping his hand across his mouth. “I’ve been working on some hex bags to hide us from demons and angels. I just gotta run out tomorrow and get the last ingredients.”

“What ingredients?” Sam asked, wondering what magic Dean was getting up to.

Dean snorted. “Just some herbs that only grow in Uganda. I had to special order them from a some hippie-dippie store a few towns over, but the shipping takes forever.”

Cas sat up, wincing. He pulled the pillow up to his chest, wrapping his arms around it as he sat back. Tilting his head, he stared down at the back of Dean’s head.

“Dean, how long have you been working on these hex bags?”

Dean swallowed and turned to Cas, the playful air gone. “About two months.”

There it was. The moment that Sam nearly outted Cas for keeping his dark secret. Dean had been working on hex bags to take Cas to the fucking OB-GYN, without prompting for _two months_. He’d done it on his own...like a doting father. This couldn’t continue. Dean was getting too invested.

But Sam held back, biting his tongue. His brows disappeared into his hair. “Two months?”

A flush was darkening on Dean’s face and he looked embarrassed. He shrugged his shoulders at Cas. “When you were puking all day and all night, I got a little worried, okay? Jeez. I wanted to make sure we had a way to get you medical attention if you needed it. So, uh, I kinda booked an appointment and got cracking on hex bag research.”

“Dean, you didn’t,” Cas half-groaned and half-sighed, pursing his lips. His eyes, however, had no malice to them.

Dean didn’t meet anyone’s eyes. He grabbed the remote and raised the volume to the movie. It was clearly a deflective tactic because the movie was basically a silent movie anyway, so volume meant nothing.

“The appointment is booked and I’ve already paid for the Ugandan herbs. We’re going to the damn appointment.”

The hesitance in Cas’ gaze was melting away as he and Dean exchanged a meaningful look. 

“Okay,” Cas murmured, fingers digging into the pillow. “Let’s go see what this avocado looks like.”

***

Weeks later, Sam found himself having a staring contest with a clown, his eyes wide in horror. The clown was two dimensional, made of paint, and was joined by a giraffe and a teddy bear in the mural painted on the OB-GYN’s waiting room wall. 

He knew it was supposed to be cute, but the only place a clown belonged was in hell-fire.

Cas was staring at the clown too, looking equally disturbed and maybe a bit suspicious, his eyes narrowed at the goofy looking painting.

“Has anyone ever asked children if they actually like clowns?” Cas asked, leaning a bit towards Sam, his voice a poorly-masked whisper. 

The secretary behind the desk peered up at him over her glasses. 

“I fucking doubt it,” Sam whispered back flatly, dropping an uncharacteristic curse word. Whatever. Clowns deserved it.

Dean, who sat in one of the waiting room chairs beside Cas, snorted. “Don’t tell me you also have a thing about clowns, Cas?”

Cas shifted in his seat. He pulled the balled up trenchcoat in his lap closer to him. “I never spared a moment to think about clowns. Now I feel a peculiar uneasiness about this one. It’s watching me.”

“Hey, Cas, what would you do if your baby came out and it looked like a clown?” Dean snickered, a shit-eating grin spreading across his face. “Like, red nose and rainbow hair and everything?”

“Child abandonment is frowned upon, right?”

Dean and Sam laughed so loudly at Cas sarcastic jest that they was shushed by another waiting family, their eyes strongly disapproving. They eyed Cas as well, their eyes narrow slits. 

“Winchester, Cas?”

A nurse appeared from a hallway lined in closed doors and she looked up from her clipboard, smiling around the room. 

Dean leaned over Cas to peer at Sam. “Really, Sam?”

Sam, who had filled out the paperwork, shrugged. “I blanked. It was that or Novak, and that didn't feel right.”

“Cas?” 

The nurse had slowly moved over to them, her kind eyes settling on Cas, who was looking from Sam to Dean, wide eyes nervous. He seemed to press back into the chair, and his fingers were getting lost in the trenchcoat as they clenched. 

Dean glanced at Cas, who had decided to stare straight forward at the clown. Maybe he thought if he didn’t look at the nurse, she wouldn’t see him either.

“Here,” Dean said to her, kicking Cas in the ankle. 

“Uh, yes,” Cas nodded, looking up at the nurse, who was smiling sweetly.

The other woman must have noticed that Cas suddenly had a case of cold feet, because she gestured toward the hallway and said gently, “We’re ready for you, mama.” 

Cas looked like he was getting up to go but he paused on the edge of his seat and shoved the trenchcoat at Sam, swallowing visibly. He turned back to the nurse.

“Um.” Cas nodded. “Right. Yes.”

The nurse chuckled. “Don’t be nervous. We don’t bite.”

“Of course,” Cas chuckled in attempt to sound normal, but it came off as a breathy nervous giggle. It was so weird to hear from Cas that both Sam and Dean did a double take.

They exchanged wide eyed looks of amusement as Cas finally rose to his feet. He followed the nurse, his hands balled into fist, fingertips rubbing nervously at his palms.

When he disappeared down the corridor, Dean turned to Sam, grinning. “I haven’t seen Cas look that nervous since I took him to that brothel.”

The woman and her husband sitting in the chairs nearby continued to glare at Dean, their eyes narrowing.

Dean cleared his throat and muttered, “Uh, I mean ‘her’.”

Right. Cas was woman-shaped. They kept referring to their pregnant female friend as ‘him’ or ‘he’, and they really didn’t need to attract attention. They really should’ve been focusing on getting in and out without being memorable. 

“ _She’ll_ be fine,” Sam snorted. He lowered his voice, “You know how she’s been lately. Just…not into it.”

Dean shuffled in his seat, tugging up his foot to rest his ankle on his knee. He rubbed incessantly at his knee. Sam noticed Dean glancing at the hallway.

“Yeah, I know how she’s been.” Dean licked his lips and scratched his stubble. “Do you think we should have gone with her?”

“She’ll be fine,” Sam reassured, eyes flicking suspiciously at the clown painting again. “The doctor will just ask some questions and do an exam. Probably an ultrasound, too. That’s what your app said, right?”

“Yeah,” Dean replied. He paused for a second, then inhaled sharply through pursed lips. He tilted his head towards Sam, his voice very quiet. “I’m just worried the hex bags won’t work.”

Sam tugged at a string around his neck, pulling the tiny hex-bag necklace out from under his shirt. It dangled from his fingers. With a small smile, he said, “They’ll work. You did your research. And I gotta say, I was skeptical at first about this idea, ‘cause I mean, it’s a nephilim, it should be fine. But it was probably good to come get Cas checked out anyway. Even though he’s acting like this is torture, I’m pretty sure deep down he’s happy to get out of the bunker for a bit. It’s been weeks.”

The man and woman across from them, very obviously eavesdropping even though Sam and Dean were trying to be quiet, exchanged looks at ‘bunker’. 

Right. Normal people didn’t live in bunkers.

With a humorous little twinge in his stomach, Sam appreciated how they probably sounded and looked like kidnapper serial killers. They had come in with a nervous pregnant woman dressed in men’s trousers and a big men’s white button down, they sat on either side of her, filled out her paperwork for her, and kept talking about how she hadn’t left a bunker in weeks.

Dean seemed to be having the same thought, though while Sam just smiled kindly at the couple, Dean winked and gave them a creepy grin. 

“Maybe if she behaves, we’ll let her eat something today.”

That earned Dean a swift, hard kick to the ankle.

“Cut it out, Dean. I don’t want to get arrested,” Sam whispered into Dean’s ear.

Dean snorted and grabbed two magazines from the small table beside him. He tossed one in Sam’s lap and settled into the seat, reading one himself.

Half an hour later, Sam was reading an article about braxton hicks, which sounded like a bad country singer, but was really what sounded like unfair torture. Why even do that to these poor women? He made a mental note to punch God in the dick if he ever met him. False labour? How cruel was that? Here, you’re pregnant and uncomfortable -- have some anxiety and panic.

The nurse (her name tag said ‘Kelly’) came back out into the room. She was Cas-less.

Dean and Sam slid to the edge of their seats, exchanging looks of worry and turning back to Kelly with twin frowns.

“Is everything okay?” Dean asked quickly.

Kelly stopped in front of them, smiling. “I think mama is a bit nervous. Who, uh, is the father?” She was gesturing between the two of them.

While Dean said ‘uuuuh’ dumbly, Sam immediately swung an elbow, getting Dean in the ribs. He pointed at his brother. “Him.”

Dean immediately cleared his throat. “Yeah. Yup. Er, that’s me. I mean, I’m the. I’m, uh. I’m the Dean. I mean dad. That’s…my baby.”

It was perhaps a bit cruel how gleeful Sam felt, watching Dean sweat under Kelly’s amused gaze.

“Okay, daddy, you wanna come watch the ultrasound? I think it might help Cas relax. She seems resistant to it and it’s important that we get it done to take crucial measurements.” Kelly paused, then added with a tinge of disapproval, “It’s also especially important since it’s week twenty-one and she hasn’t had a visit to us yet. Typically most moms have their first visit at eight weeks. You should have had her come in here months ago.”

Dean’s nervous glance back at Sam was met with a devious grin. 

“Go on, daddy,” Sam teased, pushing at Dean’s shoulder. 

“You shut up,” Dean muttered. Then he turned to Kelly and nodded, getting to his feet. His hands dragged over his hips, wiping off no doubt very clammy hands. “Lead the way.”

Kelly glanced at Sam. “Do you want to come too?”

Sam, for some reason, looked behind him as if she would be talking to the plastic plant on the other side of his chair, then he turned back to her. He poked himself in the chest, and his eyebrows raised far up onto his forehead. “Me?”

“Yes. We don’t normally allow many people into the room, but she’s nervous and if you came as moral support, then I think it might be best. Right now her heart is pounding a mile a minute.” 

Dean gave Sam a thumbs-up behind her back. Sam set the magazine down on Cas’ empty chair and rose to his feet. 

“Oh. Yeah. Of course.”

The other couple in the room looked relieved to see them go.

***

After knocking to make sure Cas was decent, the nurse walked into a small dark room and let the boys in. Cas was sitting up on a table, looking dishevelled, his shirt wonky as it looked like he’d misaligned the buttons. His hair was still mostly in the shirt against his back - he must have just pulled it over his head or thrown it over his shoulders in a rush.

“Hey,” Dean said, immediately walking over to Cas, who visibly relaxed, slumping a bit.

“Hello Dean,” Cas breathed, tilting his head a bit when Dean reached up and gently pulled Cas’ hair out from inside the shirt, draping it over his back.

Commitment to the act, Sam appreciated secretly. Good for Dean. The less suspicion on them, the better.

“You okay?” he heard Dean whisper. 

Cas nodded. “Yes. Fine--” Sam noticed Cas’ hands were balled into fists on the table-- “I didn’t anticipate that many people needing to insert their fingers and invasive tools inside me, but otherwise I’m unharmed.”

Kelly yelped a bit in surprise laughter as she got her equipment ready and snapped a glove on one hand. 

“I know, mama. It’s not the funnest, but we have to do it to make sure everything is okay. I promise, the fun part comes now.” Kelly sat on a rolling stool and pulled up close to the other side of Cas’ bed, sliding her knees under a weird keyboard with large round yellow and blue buttons that glowed. Above the keyboard was the ultrasound screen.

While Dean and Sam pulled up chairs, Kelly helped Cas lie back and politely pulled up his button-up shirt, revealing a small swollen belly. The smooth tummy made Sam feel tingles all down his arms and legs. 

Holy crap. It was real. It was really there. There was a baby in there. It hadn’t really hit Sam until then. Occasional views of the belly’s shape as Cas walked around the bunker, the breeze from his gait pulling the shirt over the swell… Those moments hadn’t been as shocking as this one. Sam was staring at an obviously pregnant baby belly. 

Dean seemed to have the same thought, because he swallowed audible. Sam saw him struggle to stare up at the screen, which had nothing on it yet. 

Kelly walked Cas through every step, warning him about the warm goo and explaining with a very delicate voice what was going to happen. Cas lay back, nodding, watery eyes glancing at the screen, keyboard, and the rounded transducer as Kelly talked about them. But mostly his eyes stared over her shoulder or up at the ceiling, blinking frequently.

Kelly’s ungloved hand came down and rested on Cas shoulder. She smiled gently. “I’m gonna start now, okay? Don’t be nervous.”

“I’m not nervous,” Cas said quickly. His voice was quiet, very small. His fingertips rubbed at his palms.

As soon as the transducer pressed against Cas’ belly and began gliding around, Dean and Cas made small noises. Cas exhaled shakily while Dean whispered, “Whoa.”

For all of Dean’s jokes about avocado shaped babies -- it was a bell pepper this week -- the shape on the screen looked very much like a actual human baby. Sam, for a brief hysterical moment, expected there to be a set of tiny wings outlined on the ultrasound image. 

Kelly walked them through the process, pointing out the head and marking its shape and size. She pointed out the spine and an arm. She measured its shoulders. 

She spoke with optimism, which was strange to hear considering the restraint they’d all shown when discussing this baby at the bunker. To see someone other than Dean gleeful about it seemed odd.

The entire experience was strange, but it got absolutely surreal when Kelly tapped a few keys on the keyboard and suddenly a _woosh-woosh-woosh-woosh_ sound came from the computer.

“Baby has a heartbeat of 157,” Kelly announced happily. “That’s great news.”

_Woosh-woosh-woosh-woosh._

Dean’s hand was ready and reaching when Cas’s hand snapped down to grab it. Dean’s fingers intertwined with Cas’. His other hand came up to his own face, fingertips brushing against his lips distractedly, his eyes wide in awe as he stared up at the screen.

“Holy shit,” Dean whispered. 

When the transducer shifted and they got a visual of the baby’s actual heart beating, Cas turned away from the screen quickly, staring up at the ceiling, blinking rapidly. His chest rose and fell in quick stutters and his nose was getting red, a flush creeping over his cheeks. 

Kelly, who otherwise hadn’t noticed anything other than whatever she was looking for on the screen, turned to Cas and patted his arm.

“That part gets emotional for a lot of people, but you have nothing to worry about, Cas. So far everything looks good.” Kelly turned back to the sonography machine and continued to slide the domed pieces over Cas’ stomach, slick with warm goo.

“Aw, look,” Kelly cooed, “look at baby’s tiny nose.”

While Dean continued to stare, Cas turned his head away, staring blankly over Dean’s shoulder at an empty wall. 

If this was just for fun, Sam would have insisted they stopped. Cas looked really unhappy. 

“Holy crap, look!” Dean gasped, lifting his fingers from his lips and pointing at the screen. “It's moving!”

“Sure is,” Kelly confirmed, chuckling. 

Dean laughed, and smacked Sam on the arm. “Dude, that’s wild.”

“Why is it doing that?” Cas asked tightly, still looking away.

Kelly glanced at Cas again, frowning. “You haven’t felt it move yet?”

There was a shuffling sound of Cas’ hair against the pillow as he shook his head. 

Kelly shrugged, looking back at the screen. “Well, baby is sure wriggling around now. Look at its little feet. All ten toes are present and accounted for.”

Dean’s other hand pressed up against the side of Cas stomach and he laughed again, shaking its head. The little alien on the screen squirmed.

“It just kicked me!” Dean choked out, yanking his hand back and wiping a bit of the warm goo on his jeans. Glancing at the side of Dean’s face, he could tell he was trying not to smile.

While the entire experience was kind of surreal, and honestly, pretty cool because Sam never thought he’d be in this situation at all, Cas looked like he was just about done. His jaw kept clenching and his eyes were trained on a spot on the wall, blinking hard and swallowing harder. 

Thankfully, while Dean was still enraptured with the screen, Kelly seemed to catch on to the vibes Cas was putting out and the ultrasound ended fairly quickly after that. She asked Dean and Sam to leave so she could ‘chat with mama’. 

But as they were filing out, Kelly asked, “Did you guys want a picture? We print them here.”

“No,” Cas said just as Dean replied with a quick, “Yeah!”

The awkward silence hung in the air, but then Cas, gazing at Dean, nodded. “Sure.”

Sam and Dean left the room, reclaiming their seats in the waiting room. The couple across from them were still there, looking impatient, their lips pursed as they perused through magazines. 

Dean leaned back in his seat, exhaling heavily, tilting his head back against the wall. Sam turned his head to follow the noise. Dean was staring up at the ceiling, a weird little crooked grin his lips.

“Dude,” he breathed, “that was fucked up. It hit me how absolutely bonkers this whole situation is.” He lifted his head from the wall and stared at Sam in goofy wonder. “Did you see that fucking baby? It was just wiggling around in there. There’s a real baby inside Cas. It’s real.”

Sam snorted. “I had the exact same thoughts. Hands down thing this might be one of the weirdest situations we’ve gotten ourselves into.” Sam paused, a thoughtful expression crossing his features. “Well, weirdest situation Cas has gotten himself into.”

He glanced sidelong at the couple and cleared his throat, lowering his voice enough that he was sure they couldn’t hear.

“Which reminds me… Uh, do you know who the dad of that kid is?” Sam elbowed Dean and added playfully, “Not that you did a bad job playing daddy, just saying.”

Dean shifted uncomfortably. He ignored Sam’s joke. He cleared his throat and crossed his arms over his chest, eyeing the mural.

“I don’t know if that really matters now, does it? Cas doesn't wanna talk about it, so let’s just bury it.”

“But, dude, did you know Cas was gay? Did he ever tell you? He never told me. I didn’t even know he had friends -- let alone a boyfriend -- outside of us.”

Dean crossed his ankles and whispered sternly, “It’s none of our business, Sam.”

Weird, Sam thought as his lips turned down into a frown. He thought Dean would’ve been all over this gossip. Cas was Dean’s best friend and he’d had some secret male lover behind their backs the entire time. 

Sam leaned towards Dean. He swallowed nervously, wondering if he should bring this up or not. 

“Uh, but shouldn’t we find out who this guy is? He should know he has a kid.” Sam inhaled, feeling nervous. Bravely, he pushed forward. “Y’know…. in case something happens to Cas.”

Dean jerked his head at Sam, his eyes dark and his brows furrowed. “What? ‘In case something happens to Cas’? What do you mean? Nothing is gonna happen to Cas. He’s got protection, at least until the kid is born, as far as I know. He’ll be fine.”

 _Oh, Dean._ Sam’s heart sank. Cas _needed_ to tell Dean. This was getting too hard to bear.

“Dean, be realistic. We don’t know what having a nephilim means. Cas might die -- uh, or something.”

Dean’s mouth opened and closed a few times, his eyes angry. “What the hell is wrong with you? He’ll be fine. Cas will be fine.”

Sam felt like he’d over stepped. And he felt a terrible pain in his stomach that was a mix of guilt about almost spilling the beans and anguish for his brother, who cared so much and was rooting for Cas.

“As for the guy,” Dean continued, forgetting to whisper, “fuck him. Cas and that kid have us, okay? Family before fuck-boys.”

Sam rolled his eyes. “Dean, that sounds like something a fifteen year old girl would juxtapose on a picture of a landscape and post it on Instagram.”

“Instawhat?” Dena asked, momentarily confused.

Sam turned in his seat towards Dean and muttered carefully, “We need to be realistic.” 

He inhaled, gathering courage. Sam opened his mouth, ready to tell Dean the truth when the door opened and Kelly came out with Cas. 

Cas eyes were red and the bags underneath his eyes looked a bit puffy. He had his hair flipped over to one side. Sam knew Cas had been flipping his hair over to one side of his head as a nervous tick lately. Something was up. 

He and Dean got to their feet. Sam stepped forward, shaking out the trenchcoat, holding it open for Cas, who stepped into it, his head down a bit, eyes downcast.

Dean looked concerned. He stepped towards Cas, “Hey, are you alr--”

“Dad, I need to speak with you,” Kelly interrupted, her voice kind but with an edge of firmness to it. “In private. Mama said I could share some information with you. I’ll only take a few minutes of your time.”

Dean frowned, trying to meet Cas’ gaze, but Cas’ gaze was on the floor as he slid his hands into the trench coat pockets.

“Uh,” Dean glanced back over at Kelly and nodded. “Sure.”

Dean followed Kelly back down the hallway and disappeared as she closed the door shut behind them.

Sam turned back to Cas, resting a hand on his shoulder. “Everything okay? Do you want to sit?”

“I want everyone to stop treating me like I’m fragile,” Cas ground out from between his teeth, raising his face. It was blotchy, with a flush painting his hollow cheeks and his nose.

Sam’s hand jerked back from Cas’ shoulder. _So mood swings are thing now,_ he thought briskly, making a mental note. He shoved the hand in his pocket. “Uh, right.”

Cas stood awkwardly, shuffling towards the door. Sam followed him. They left the office and stood in the hallway, watching through the glass for Dean. Cas paced the hallway while Sam stood against the wall.

“So, uh, everything go okay in there after we left?” Sam asked again, treading lightly.

Cas didn’t seem like he was going to answer. For a few long moments, he just paced away from Sam, then he stopped and stood with his back to Sam.

“I accidentally told the nurse I feared I was going to die.”

Sam tilted his head back against the wall, exhaling heavily, hoping the breath would ease some of the heaviness in his chest. It didn’t.

“Why would you say that to her?”

Cas turned his head to throw Sam an angry look over his shoulder. “Because it’s true. And because she recommended I did research on breastfeeding to prepare myself.”

Right. Cas wouldn’t be around to do that. 

Cas continued, his tone quiet and resentful. “I asked her if there was some other way to feed the child, should I not be around. She pried, she tried to tell me everyone had that fear, that it was normal. She keep pushing, and pushing, and pushing, and I caved. I thought honesty was the best route.” Cas made a sound that resembled a laugh, but it was bitter. “I must remember not to do that.”

It did occur to Sam to remind Cas angrily that he’d withheld the truth from the one person who deserved it the most, but from the conversation he’d just had with Dean, Sam was beginning to understand that discussion might come with a lot of denial and frustration. It would be painful. He was starting to understand why Cas would be apprehensive to tell Dean the truth. Recalling the quick appearance of fear and alarm that crossed Dean’s face merely at the suggestion _of the possibility_ of Cas dying, Sam wasn’t really quite ready to lay the truth on him just yet.

“I think we can find another way,” Sam said.

Cas continued pacing, shaking his head. “Don’t say stupid things, Sam.”

“It’s not stupid! We have to try,” Sam argued, pushing off the wall. Cas’ pacing was driving him nuts. “There has to be something we can do. We’ll research, we’ll find an angel we can talk to, someone who knows--”

“Please,” Cas pleaded, turning to face Sam, who was halfway through closing the distance between them. “Please don’t make this more difficult than it already is. I’m…not coping well. Giving me false hope will only hurt more than it will help. My days are numbered and I still haven’t found a way to save the angels or re-open heaven. I don’t have time to waste hunting for a magical solution to save me that doesn’t exist and is impossible.”

Sam pointed at Cas, tilting his head and reminding him gently, “We’ve beat ‘impossible’ before, Cas. We’ll save you.”

Cas’ face crumpled and he pressed a hand to his chest, inhaling sharply. “Stop. _Stop_.”

Sam rested his hands on Cas’ shoulders, giving them a squeeze. “Hey, hey, it’s all right. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I upset you--”

“This is so annoying,” Cas whispered in a trembling breath, reaching up to swipe a hand under his eyes as they leaked tears down his cheeks. “It hate this incessant crying and tightness in my chest.”

There was no resistance when Sam pulled Cas in for a hug. He was still angry at him and still determined to find a way to save Cas from dying, but he dropped the subject, feeling guilty for upsetting him. His big hand patted Cas between his shoulder blades as Cas tried to calm his breathing, his cheek pressed against Sam’s chest. 

“Hormones, Cas,” Sam laughed. “It’s gonna be happening for a while I guess. Get used to it.”

“I hate it,” Cas sniffed wetly. “I cried the entire time Kelly scolded me for refusing to breastfeed. She asked if she could speak to Dean about things we’d talked about and I was too busy being choked up to say no. I-I just…. There’s no reason for tears. I’ve been stabbed. I’ve been tortured before. I led armies into Hell, I was a warrior. I don’t _cry_.”

Involuntarily, he pictured Cas’ male form trying to breastfeed a baby. Also, he pictured Cas leading an army into hell, heavily pregnant. Sam’s lips threatened to twist into a stupid grin above Cas head, though he tried to sort his features into an empathetic look before Cas could see.

Sam pulled away from Cas, still holding his shoulders. “No judgement, okay? Here.”

Cas accepted the tissue Sam fished from his pocket and passed to him, wiping at his face.

The glass door from the doctor’s office swung open and Dean emerged, looking pissed. He immediately zeroed in on Cas and strode over, guns-blazing. 

Although as soon as he spotted a teary eyed Cas running the tissue under his nose, clear blue eyes darting up at him, Dean’s attitude seemed to shift.

“You all right?” he asked, tilting his head down a bit to meet Cas’ eyes as they diverted again.

“Can we go?” Cas asked roughly, his voice suddenly tinged with annoyance. “I want to go.”

He didn’t wait for them to answer. Cas stepped away from Sam and turned on his heel, heading down the hall towards the elevator, trenchcoat flapping behind him. 

Sam and Dean exchanged looks and followed. Dean, though his stride was shorter than Sam’s, sped ahead, reaching for Cas’ shoulder. 

“Hey, wait. Don’t think we’re not gonna talk about what Kelly just told me, okay?” 

Cas yanked his shoulder out of Dean’s grasp and stopped in front of the elevators, pushing the ‘down’ button a few times, harder than he needed to.

Dean carried on, which was inconsequential because Cas looked he had no intention of answer Dean anyway. 

“She told me everything is fine -- perfect, even! The baby is fine, you’re fine. This pregnancy is nearly perfect but for some reason you’re convinced you’re gonna die at the end?”

Cas smacked the down button again with the palm of his hand, his eyes staring unblinkingly at the digital numbers displayed above the doors.

“I don’t want to talk about this right now,” he ground out through his teeth.

“Tough shit!” Dean snapped back. 

Behind them, the couple from the waiting room exited the office and walked up behind them, patiently waiting for the elevator.

Dean spared them a momentary glance, then whispered angrily, “You have until we reach the car to come up with an explanation for me.”

The elevator doors opened with a little ‘ding!’. Dean moved to step into the elevator, but Cas’ arm snapped out, blocking his way in. Sam and Dean glanced down at Cas, who had his hand over his mouth and nose, his eyes wide.

Dean’s brow furrowed and he began to ask what was going on, when Cas whispered breathlessly, “Sulphur.”

Dean and Sam looked across at each other, eyes wide. 

Sam shoved his hand into his jacket, his fingers wrapping around the handle of his angel blade. He, Dean, and Cas spun around to face the couple, who were grinning at them, their eyes black.

“Congratulations on the new baby,” the father demon jeered, his lips twisted into an ugly sneer. 

The calm interaction didn’t last a second. Dean stepped in front of Cas, brandishing his angel blade. 

“Dean, take Cas and run!” Sam yelled, throwing himself at the man, his arm swinging out with the blade.

The demon ducked and landed a swift punch to Sam’s stomach. Meanwhile, Dean grabbed Cas by the hand and yanked him down the corridor, running for the stairs.

They didn’t make it very far, because the woman demon ran after them and grabbed Cas by his other hand, yanking him back. Cas’ hand slipped from Dean’s grasp. The demon tugged him towards her, spinning Cas around. 

They stood face to face, inches apart.

“Time to come with us, beautiful. We’ll take good care of you,” the woman purred, running her hand over Cas’ smooth face.

“Let Cas go, you ugly bitch!” Dean snarled, poised to fling his blade right at the demon woman’s face.

Meanwhile, Sam grappled with the other demon a ways down, pushing him up against a wall and pressing the tip of the angel blade against his throat. 

“No, Sam!” Cas cried, watching over the demon-woman’s shoulder. “Don’t!”

Dean and Sam both paused, but kept their angel blades on target. The demon in front of Sam was panting, eyeing the blade with disdain.

“Cas, what are you talking about?” Dean snapped.

“She’s pregnant, Dean!” Cas replied angrily. “Don’t hurt them.”

Sam watched Dean look down at the woman, his eyes drifting to her big belly. Dean’s eyes snapped back up, frustrated, though the murderous glint faded.

“We can’t just do nothing, Cas!” Dean barked.

“They can’t hurt me,” Cas replied, a suddenly glint in his eye. He smirked at the woman demon standing in front of him. When he addressed her, he sounded smug, “If you attempt to injure me, you will die. I suggest letting me go or my nephilim will blast you seven ways back to Hell.”

The demon laughed. “Liar.”

“Do not test me,” Cas replied, tilting his head. “My nephilim destroyed two angels who tried to harm me. Their wings were singed into the ground beneath them before they knew what was happening. If it can do that to angels, do you want to find out what my nephilim will do to two lowly demon scum?”

The demon turned around, meeting the gaze of her partner, who was glaring furiously at Cas.

“The angel bitch is lying, Nea!” the man spat. Sam pressed his blade deeper against the demon’s skin, eyes narrowing. 

Before Nea could turn back around to face Cas again, Dean yanked Cas back, stepped forward, and grabbed the demon by the neck, swinging her off her feet, and throwing her down to the ground. He pinned her down, hands over her wrists. 

Meanwhile, Cas stumbled back and braced himself against a wall. As both of the demons struggled against the Winchesters, Cas gasped out, “Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus--”

Sam was pushed back by the demon, his blade smacked out of his hands. Sam stumbled back against the opposite wall. It swung at him and Sam reached up to block the blows, dodging as a fist nearly collided with his face.

“--omnis satanica potestas, omnis incursio infernalis adversarii--”

Knowing Cas didn’t want to hurt the meatsuits, Sam tried to be defensive, but the demon was overpowering him and Sam ended up throwing an uppercut into the man’s jaw, sending him stumbling back again. 

On the floor, Dean struggled to hold the pregnant woman down as she bucked and tried to headbutt him.

“Hurry up, Cas!” Dean hissed, dodging as she tried to snap her head up again.

Rogue locks of long wavy hair swung in front of Cas’ face as his lips moved faster, gasping out the words, “--omnis legio, omnis congregatio et secta diabolica, ergo draco maledicte, ut ecclesiam tuam secura, tibi facias libertate servire, te rogamus, audi nos!”

Dean turned his face away as black smoke erupted from the woman’s mouth. Sam did the same as the man he was fighting tossed his head back and screamed. Their combined black smoke curled up into the air and disappeared into the air vents.

The man dropped down against the wall, panting and holding his stomach and face, his eyes watering. His partner immediately burst into tears and Dean scrambled off her. Cas rushed forward, and with Dean’s help, assisted her to her feet. 

“Oh my god,” she wept, a hand over her mouth. “What happened? W-What was that? We were j-just sitting there in the waiting room a-and then--”

“You hit the ground rather hard. Are you hurt?” Cas rushed out, placing a hand on either of her shoulders. She shook her head aggressively. 

“Call an ambulance, just in case,” Sam said to the father, who he then left crumpled on the floor. 

Sam was sore, but he would live. They needed to get out of open. The screams would have alerted other people, and they didn’t have time to be questioned. The exorcism was short -- Cas had expelled the demons but not sent them away. Those demons could come back.

After their gaze met, Sam and Dean nodded to each other, sharing the same thought. Dean grabbed Cas by the arm and yanked him towards the stairs. “They’re fine, Cas. We gotta go.”

“You’ll be all right,” Cas reassured the woman, his hands sliding off her shoulders. As Sam and Dean tugged him towards the exit, Cas threw her one last regretful glance and said, “I’m so sorry.”

They ran down the stairs, bursting out of the doors of the office building and jogging towards the car. Cas slid into the back seat. 

“You drive,” Dean panted at Sam, tossing him the keys. Sam barely caught them in time, and yanked the driver seat door open, sliding in.

As soon as Dean was in, Sam pulled out of the parking spot, tearing out of the lot.

“How did they find us?” Dean growled. “Those hex bags… They should have worked.”

“They probably did, but those demons probably tracked us all the way from home,” Sam replied, shaking his head. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve just been hovering over the bunker since our run in with Abbadon.”

“Fuck!” Dean burst out, slamming his hand down on the dashboard. He seemed to fume for a second, then he twisted in his seat, his hand reaching back for Cas. It pressed against Cas’ stomach and he asked through a lump in his throat, “You okay? How’s, uh…”

Cas’ hand slid over Dean’s and he nodded, though he looked a bit shaken. As he and Dean gazed at each other, the tension defused. Cas smiled. 

“It’s okay, Dean. The avocado is okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I adore reading comments left on my fics, so please leave me a little something to make my heart sing!


	8. The Banana Split

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is unbeta'd. All mistakes are mine.
> 
> I forgot to mention this earlier, but any reference to what fruit the baby is comparable to comes from this resource: http://www.bounty.com/pregnancy-and-birth/pregnancy/pregnancy-week-by-week/10-weeks-pregnant

After the visit to the obstetrician’s office, Cas’ attitude shifted.

While he wasn’t gushing about his kid and thrilled at the topic of birth as it occasionally came up, he amused Dean with pulling his hand onto his stomach whenever the baby kicked. Even Sam got to touch the wriggly thing as it flailed around. Sam was partially amused and partially grossed out at the lump pushing up at his hand. Sometimes they could see it through Cas’ shirt, even though he still wore loose men’s button-down shirts. If he sat a certain way, the shirt a draped over his little -- well, _medium-_ sized bump. Dean thought it was hilarious, and kept making ‘Alien’ chest burst jokes whenever it happened.

Dean continued to announce the fruit status of the baby, and slowly transitioned back to revealing fun facts about it as Cas seemed to ease up over the weeks. His calmer demeanor probably had to do with the fact that the puking had stopped for the most part, though he went a bit green every time they even talked about bacon.

The baby had gone from a bell pepper, to a sweet potato, to a mango, and now it was a papaya. It had eyelashes and hair, and all its fingers and toes. It could pee and tumble around. It had lungs.

But Dean’s favourite fact? It could hear now.

One day, to be a troll, Dean took off his headphones and slid them over Cas’ baby bump, the headband hugging the top curve of the tummy, the earpieces latched snuggly to the sides. Cas had rolled his eyes but not taken off the mechanism, instead going back to his research. Dean laughed to himself like he was being clever and turned up the volume so the kid could ‘listen to Zeppelin like a real badass’.

Sam noticed that the ultrasound picture was hung up on the fridge. It was completely wrinkled, but that may have been because Cas had it crushed in his fist the entire way home. Regardless, it hung in the kitchen now, smoothed out by four little magnets on each corner. The baby’s fist was curled up by its face by its giant head. Dean gave it props every morning before he yanked the fridge door open to grab breakfast.

The tension between Dean and Cas had lifted. Sam wasn’t completely sure what Cas and Dean had talked about when they returned from the doctor’s, but he’d heard them screaming at each other in Cas’ room, then go quiet. They were quiet in there for so long, Sam had gotten worried and left his library research to go check up on them.

When he’d arrived in the doorway to Cas’ room, Cas was out cold, lying on his side, snoozing, his hair splayed over his shoulders and the pillow. He had a pillow jammed between his legs and Dean was sitting on a chair by the bed, leaned over the mattress. One of his hands turned the pages of a book spayed on the rumpled covers, the other reached over, kneading his thumb into Cas’ lower back.

“Dude…” Sam had laughed quietly, the noise escaping him before he could control it.

Dean ignored him and kept reading. “Shut up. Friends don’t let friends suffer from back pain.”

Sam leaned against the doorway. “I see how it is. I didn’t get an offer for a back massage when my back was shitty.”

“Gross,” Dean said boredly, flipping a page. “Well, Sam, you let me know when you’re lady shaped and pregnant and crying because you can’t sleep in literally any position because it hurts so bad. Then come back to me and bitch about how _your brother_ doesn’t give you back massages, bitch.”

“Jerk,” Sam muttered. He smirked, watching Dean read intently, his hand still working into Cas’ back.

Cas kept snoozing, snoring softly. One hand rested gently on the soft curve of his stomach, while the other was outstretched, resting on the nightstand, fingers wrapped around a balled-up tissue.

“So…everything turn out all right with you guys?” Sam asked. “Did he tell you anything?”

Dean licked his lips and Sam could tell he’d stopped reading. His eyes were trained on the same section of the page.

“Yup.”

“And?” Sam pressed, eager to know if Cas had told the truth.

Dean’s head turned to the side, a weary look on his face. “He’s just…scared to die. He’s just freaking out. He’ll be fine.”

Oh. So Cas was going with half-truths.

Sam sighed, ducking his head, looking down at his toe, running it over the seam where two floorboards met.

“Right.”

Dean watched Sam, following his toe as it grazed the crack in the floor. Quietly, he continued, “I guess he just doesn’t know what’s gonna happen. He doesn’t think good things happen to him. It’s probably some kind of self-loathing bullshit.”

“What if he’s right?” Sam pushed, looking up at Dean. “What if he dies?”

“Why the fuck does everyone keep pushing this?” Dean growled through his teeth. “Cas isn’t gonna die. He’s just freaking out. He’s human, he’s got this thing growing inside him, it’s scary, okay? No one asked for this and I get that change is scary but for fuck’s sake, this kid is coming so we gotta stop it with the doom and gloom.”

“I think we’re just trying to be realistic,” Sam countered, but his voice was soft. “Cas doesn’t know what’s gonna happen and he doesn’t want you, uh, us to be unprepared if something goes south.”

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it, then, okay?” Dean declared abruptly. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

“I know it’s awkward to talk about but, like, what’re we gonna do if Cas doesn’t make it? The baby’s gotta eat. How are we gonna feed it if…if Cas isn’t here? And…Dean, do you really expect a baby, a kid, to live down here? There are no windows, there’s dangerous shit everywhere. We don’t even have an address, we’re glorified squatters. What are you gonna write on the birth certificate? What are we gonna do? How are we gonna hunt?”

By the time Sam was done ranting, Dean’s head was propped up on his fist, his angry eyes watching his own hand knead into Cas’ back.

Steadily and dangerously, Dean murmured, “I swear to God, Sam, if you keep talking about Cas dying, I will deck you.”

Sam pushed off the door frame and exhaled, puffing out his cheeks. He ran his fingers through his hair and linked his fingers behind his head.

This was unbelievable. Either Dean was convinced Cas was going to be fine, or he was deep, deep in denial.

“Fine,” Sam whispered with exasperation, jerking his fingers apart and throwing his hands up in the air. “I’ll figure it out myself.”

***

A week later -- the baby was the size of a grapefruit -- Cas and Sam finally got a moment where Dean wasn’t in the room to discuss post-death options.

“There are milk banks,” Sam whispered to Cas, watching the library exit where Dean disappeared to make lunch.

Cas accepted the tablet as it was passed to him, and he frowned down at the website that Sam had opened for him.

“A bank for milk?” Cas asked, one eyebrow raised, his lips frowning. “That sounds made-up, Sam.”

“They’re real,” Sam laughed a bit under his breath. “They’re for mothers who can’t produce milk for whatever reason.”

“That happens?” Cas asked, his other brow joining the first, raising up his forehead. “That seems cruel.”

“Yeah, from what I’m reading, it sucks. I guess it happens with cesareans and stuff.”

“The Dog Whisperer?”

Sam’s face went blank for a moment and he shook his head.. “Stop watching stupid TV with Dean, Cas. It’s rotting your brain.”

“He’s very good with dogs,” Cas explained seriously, looking at Sam in earnest.

“Anyway,” Sam reached over and swiped across the screen, bringing up another tab, “we could buy a shitload of formula too. Stock it in the basement so Dean doesn’t see. He never goes down there anymore.”

Cas stared down at the mommy-blog entry about formula that Sam had found. “This might be a good idea. Both ideas.” He looked up and smiled gently, his head tilting just a bit. “Thank you, Sam.”

Sam smiled back. “It’s the least I could do, Cas. I could run out in a few months and grab a bulk amount. Maybe when Dean’s out on an errand, or maybe you find some way to keep him busy for a few hours.”

Cas dropped the tablet onto the table, fumbling.

“Jesus, Cas!”

“I’m sorry,” Cas apologized quickly, snatching up the tablet. His eyes darted up to Sam’s face, but then diverted back down, swiping arbitrarily at the screen. “That was clumsy of me. I apologize.”

“S’fine,” Sam muttered, after sparing a few darting glances down at his tablet, making sure it wasn’t cracked or dislodged from the case.

He swiped a hair away from his face and leaned on the table, watching Cas scroll through the website, gnawing at his bottom lip as he read through the article.

“Anyway, Dean and I could hit up the milk bank or whatever after, uh,” _You die_ , “it’s born. I promise, we’ll take care of your kid. Or, uh...”

Cas didn’t look up at Sam, though he paused his scrolling. Sam almost thought Cas hadn’t been listening, but then Cas nodded quickly and resumed his reading.

Sam glanced at the doorway again, hearing the water running in the kitchen and the clanking of pots in the sink. Dean didn’t seem to be coming back any time soon…

“Cas,” Sam asked carefully, twisted his face into an empathetic, soft expression of concern, “I’ve been thinking… Do you think we should contact the, um, the other parent?”

“Why?” Cas asked flatly, dragging a finger over the tablet, his face highlighted by the blue light from the screen.

Sam picked at his nails. “Um, because maybe he might want his kid?”

Cas’ head snapped up and he stared at Sam. His eyes widened and his mouth parted. The expression could have been anything and Sam didn’t know how to interpret it. He looked kind of confused? Mad? Maybe a bit hurt or scared. Either way, Cas didn’t look like he liked what Sam was asking.

“Do you believe the nephilim will be a burden to you?” Cas asked, and it seemed like his hand slid off the table involuntarily, slipping over the soft swell under his shirt. “Do you not want to care for it?”

Cas seemed to have a hard time swallowing, then he asked tightly, “Did Dean tell you he doesn’t want it?”

Sam straightened up a bit and waved his hand. “No! No, Cas. I mean, no. I just mean, well, it’s this other guy’s, right? The dude should know he has a kid. Dean and I have your back, and we’ll take your kid in. As far as I’m concerned, you’re family, Cas. So…that baby is family too,” Sam paused as Cas seemed to relax a bit, though his eyes seemed untrusting at he gazed across the table at him. Sam continued, ensuring his voice was softer, “I know I haven’t seemed all too thrilled -- well, not as much as Dean -- but it’s just because I’m not good with kids. Dean’s secretly dad-material, though don’t tell him I told you that. He’s just got a thing with kids and he had an apple pie life before so I know he secretly wants it.”

“Then it doesn’t matter who the human father is,” Cas said sternly, his brows furrowing.

Sam frowned. “But…the angels said they’d kill him if you didn't surrender yourself.”

Cas licked his lips and shrugged. “I’m not worried about him. He’s safe.”

Sam had no idea how Cas could sound so sure. But Sam recalled Cas’ explanation of nephilim from months ago and his tone went even softer. “Cas, you said nephilim are created when an angel loves a human more than God. If you love him, wouldn’t you want talk to him and tell him? About the baby, about everything that’s going to happen. Don’t you want to… I dunno, say goodbye?”

Cas glared at the tablet, tapping it too hard with his finger. “I said no, Sam. And this is none of your business. Why are you so persistent about this?”

Sam tried to stay soft and careful, but there was definitely an edge to his tone when he blurted out, “Because you’re letting Dean get really invested and if you decide last minute that you’re going to change your mind and tell this random dude he has a kid, he might want it. And if that happens, Dean will be crushed. Not only will he lose his best friend, but he’ll lose his fake kid, too.”

Sam hadn’t meant to say all that. He hadn’t even realised he really felt that way until it came out of his mouth. But alas, it was true. Dean _was_ acting like this thing was his kid. And maybe Cas was kinda letting him.

Cas blinked at him and they sat in silence, staring at each other strangely. Sam was embarrassed about what he’d said, because it was true and it was indirectly humiliating to Dean. Cas looked a bit pale and a bit shocked.

“I…” Cas finally spoke, sounding a bit rough. “I didn’t mean for Dean to get invested. I tried to prevent that at the start…”

Sam sighed, linking his fingers together on the table, staring down at them. “I know. I know you tried, but you know how Dean is about family. I don’t mean to sound like a jerk, Cas, honest. I’m just having a hard time with everything. You haven’t told Dean you’re going to die. He doesn’t know.”

Cas was quiet. The tablet had gone black, the screen was off from lack of interaction. But Cas still gazed at it, sad.

“I know.”

Sam scrubbed a hand over his mouth. “He’s going into this blind and it’s just really painful to watch. Dean’s like, acting like this is his kid and meanwhile, it actually belongs to some _guy_ out there. You can’t blame me for being worried about all this, I--”

“You’re being a giant jerk,” Dean said firmly from the doorway. He had a dish towel over his shoulder. He leaned on the wall.

Cas gazed at him sadly while Sam snapped his head in Dean’s direction, his heart shooting up into his throat.

“Dean! Jesus… how long have you been standing there?”

Dean rolled his eyes. “Right about the time you started acting like a real dick about how painful it was to watch me act like this is my kid.”

Sam flushed, his heart sinking down from his throat and into his stomach. “I’m sorry, Dean. I didn’t mean--”

Dean walked up the steps, pointing at his brother. “Cas is family, got it? His kid _is_ my kid, okay? As far as I’m concerned, this dude Cas fucked can go to Hell. He doesn't exist in my eyes and I’m not wasting time thinking about him. We got other shit to care about like Abbadon and fallen angels and where the fuck we’re gonna put this baby. I don’t care about this guy or his custody rights, okay?”

Dean gestured around the room and then at Cas, “Do you see Mr. Mystery Sperm Donor anywhere in here? Do you see Cas crying about him? No. The kid belongs here with us, where it’s safe. Where it has family. Where it’s protected from all the angels and demons trying to use it for their bullshit agendas. It deserves a chance to grow up, okay? So cut the shit, Sam.”

That was it then. Dean admitted to everything Sam had been suspicious about; he really did want to raise this kid. And Cas didn’t care to look for his lover, clearly it hurt too much to think about.

Sam swallowed, looking away from his brother, down to the table in front of him.

It was happening then. Cas would die and he’d have to help his brother raise a kid.

“Fine,” Sam replied stiffly. “I won’t bring it up again.”

“Good,” Dean retorted, tapping the top of the table. “I don’t care to hear about that shit anymore. Our lives are changing, but you know what, I don’t care. I’m tired of the same depressing shit, Sam. We need something good in our lives, okay? Now let’s go eat.”

Dean turned on his heel and strode out of the room, whipping the towel off of his shoulder with an angry snap.

Sam tried to catch Cas’ eye, but it was impossible. With long brown strands of hair falling into his face from his loose ponytail, Cas stared blankly at the tablet with tears in his eyes.

***

Week thirty-three rolled around. The baby was the size of a butternut squash.

It had gotten into the habit of kicking every ten minutes, and Dean had evolved into his final dotting-not-dad form by reading baby books constantly.

Oh, Cas had become a raging, homicidal bitch.

Sam couldn’t believe they were risking leaving the bunker again, especially after the disaster that was the OB-GYN visit and previous run-ins with supernatural forces that wanted Cas’ ass on a silver platter. But Dean and Sam had no choice when Cas threatened them at butter-knife point over breakfast that morning, ordering them to ‘get him the fuck out of this bunker’ or they’d lose an eye.

But they tried the hex bags again and Dean went out with a spellbook, doing about four different incantations to banish demons away from the area so they could sneak away from the bunker. With fingers crossed that they were hidden and the magical wards around them were stable, they went on a very important mission.

Dean parked outside of Target, turning off the car and peering up at the big red sign.

“All right,” he said very seriously. “Supplies. Who has the list?”

“I do,” Cas grumbled.

Dean turned around in his seat, running his gaze over Cas, who stared at him like he hated his guts.

“‘Kay, so you wanna _get_ that list, Cas? I want to double check it.”

“Dean, it’s in my back pocket.”

“So?”

Cas tilted his head at Dean and fixed him with a stare so volatile that Dean recoiled a bit. He and Sam exchanged quick looks of fear.

Cas pointed at his stomach, which no variation of men’s clothing could hide anymore. The bump had gone from zero to a hundred in mere weeks and frankly, Cas looked pretty big and pretty uncomfortable _all the time_. It was so big he needed help getting up, though he waved it off irritably. Too many times Dean had reached out to stop Cas from tipping over all together. At first, Dean had been alarmed, but by the fifth or sixth time in one day, Dean had transitioned to looking bored whenever he had to straighten Cas out.

“Do I look like I can just casually reach into my back pocket right now, Dean?” Cas asked hotly, and if he tilted his head anymore, it might twist all the way around like the Exorcist demon. “I could more easily reach into _your_ back pocket than my own.”

“Okaaay,” Dean sighed, as he turned back around in his seat, his eyebrows raising on his forehead. “We’ll check it inside, I guess.”

They got out, and Cas rolled his eyes at Sam, who’d come around the car to help him up. Cas shoved his hands away and used the door to haul himself out, looking out of breath after.

Cas reached back and shoved aside fabric of the long, loose plaid shirt that hung off his shoulders. He fished in his back pocket, then shoved the warm, wrinkled list into Dean’s hand.

“Take your list.”

He pushed past them and walked towards the store.

“Jeeze,” Sam breathed. Beside him, Dean exhaled through his lips, shaking his head, watching Cas waddle through the front doors.

“You’re telling me, dude. He’s been such a bitch today.” Dean stared at Sam, shaking his head. “I walked into the kitchen for breakfast and said “Morning, Cas”, and you know what he said?”

Sam shrugged.

“He said ‘fuck yourself, Dean’.” Dean’s eyes narrowed to glare at Sam when he burst out laughing. Dean’s jaw clenched. “As if him getting pregnant was all my fault, jeeze. I miss Cas when he was crying and puking all the time. At least he was nice.”

When Sam didn’t stop laughing, Dean rolled his eyes and walked away, smoothing out the list and giving it a read.

“Well,” Sam chortled as he jogged to catch up, “you did always say you thought it would be hysterical if Cas started swearing.”

“Do I look like I’m laughing?” Dean asked out of the corner of his mouth as he distractedly swept his eyes over their list. “Dude is a menace.”

They walked into the store together. Sam peered around, looking for Cas.

Dean glanced down at the list in his hand. “All right. Let’s split up, making it quick. We need; hydrogen peroxide, salt, bandages, orange juice, baby wipes, diapers, whiskey, baby bottles, a car seat, a crib, hair ties, cereal, body wash, butterfly bandages, and those weird little cheese cracker things Cas has been inhaling.”

“On it,” Sam nodded. “I’ll get groceries, you, uh, buy baby stuff.”

“Cool,” Dean said while he shoved his list in his pocket. “Try and find Cas while you’re at it.”

“Oh, great. Will do,” Sam muttered, dreading having to put up with Cas’ whining and moaning. But he had no such luck, because as soon as he turned into the cold foods aisle, there Cas was, standing in front of the display of eggs and milk. He stood with the fridge door open, leaning off the open door, eyes closed and tilted towards the ceiling. He had his hair twisted in one hand and held up off his neck.

“Cas,” Sam asked carefully, pushing a cart towards his friend. “You all right?”

“It’s too hot to talk right now, Sam,” Cas rumbled, not opening his eyes.

Sam shuddered against the waft of cold air curling from the fridge. He stopped beside Cas and wrapped a hand around his arm, pulling him away from the dairy products.

“Hey!” Cas barked as he was dragged away, his angry blue eyes turning on Sam when he shut the fridge door.

“You’re going to make yourself sick just standing in the cold like that,” Sam argued, pulling Cas along the aisle with him.

“That’s a myth,” Cas snapped, glaring at the yogurt displays as they passed them. “I feel like my insides are boiling, let me go back.”

“How about this,” Sam proposed, letting Cas go but putting a hand between his shoulders, urging him forward, “we get you actual women’s clothing. It’s lighter and thinner than men's stuff.”

“I’m _not_ wearing a dress,” Cas muttered, shrugging off Sam’s hand. “I tolerated the breasts, and the vagina, and my hips shifting, and this morphing body that hurts and whose center of gravity is skewed, but I draw the line--”

“Whatever you want, Cas.” Sam sighed. “You can buy all the giant button downs you want, but you may as well buy them from the women’s section so that you’re comfortable - oh, grab me the orange juice there… No, the one with pulp… No, Cas the one on the bottom shelf. It has oranges on it. It says ‘With Pulp'.”

“I can’t bend down that far.”

“Oh my God, _Cas_.”

“Can’t you just drink the ‘No Pulp’ one? It appears that someone went through a lot of trouble to remove the pulp.”

“No, Cas, it’s gross.”

“You know what, Sam? You get whatever I can reach.”

A carton of No Pulp was shoved into his hands. Cas trudged away, pausing a little ways up the aisle to regain his balance against a fridge door.

As Sam followed Cas, after getting the not-gross orange juice, he contemplated how angry Dean would be if he just ditched Cas in the frozen food aisle and drove home.

Sam leaned on the cart as he walked it up the aisle and pulled out his phone. Quickly, he texted Dean.

Sam

 _I can’t with Cas. We gotta switch. I’ll do the baby stuff, you get groceries._  

Dean replied almost instantly.

Dean

_nah. ill do baby stuff, u suck at baby stuff. Just tell me where cas is, ill go get him._

Sam

_Currently wandering into the clothing department._

Dean

_K. ill meet up with him. Go buy me those spicy doritos, i forgot to put em on the list._

A second later, another text message followed.

Dean

_Get 2 bags. cas usually kills one all on his own._

Sam let Cas wander off, happy to pass him off to Dean.

He did the rest of the shopping quickly. At first it had been kind of relaxing to be alone, to enjoy the soft music playing in the store and have a moment of peace where he wasn’t worried about babies and demons and angels. He cruised down the chip aisle, hopping up onto the back of the cart and riding it down the aisle smoothly, laughing a bit.

But the contentedness was fleeting. The hex bag scratched at his chest under his shirt and Sam remembered how they hadn’t been able to see the demons in the OB-GYN’s office, and found himself grabbing groceries quicker, throwing them into the cart with a bit more haste.

He imagined all manners of bad things happening to Cas, and felt guilty for letting him wander off. What if Dean hadn’t found him?

Sam veered at the end of the aisle and parked their grocery cart just outside of the clothing department. He looked around, not seeing Cas or Dean. He _did_ spot Dean’s cart on the outside of the department too, obvious with its overflowing load. A baby seat jutted out of the wire cart, messily tetris’d in beside a box of newborn diapers.

Dean wasn’t anywhere to be found. Sam swallowed a thick lump in his throat.

“Dean?” Sam yelled. “Cas?”

“Yeah?”

Sam’s heart dislodged itself from his throat and he followed the sound of his brother’s laughter.

Sam walked through the clothing department and crossed through the change rooms, appearing on the other side, stepping into the children’s section. Dean turned to him, waving the tiniest blue onesie Sam had ever seen in his life in the air. It hardly seemed like it would fit his hand.

“Dude,” Dean snorted, turning the onesie around to show Sam the back, “Wings.”

The little jumpsuit, which had said “Daddy’s Little Angel’ on the front, had the itty-bittiest little floppy wings sticking out of the back. “Wings. This thing has wings.”

Cas stood behind Dean, looking grumpy and unimpressed.

“Those,” Cas said, his brows raised, his finger point under a pile of clothing in his arms, “are not wings. Those are flaps of fabric.”

Dean rolled his eyes but threw the small onesie on top of the pile in Cas’ arms. The annoyed looking ex-angel had a load of plaid and new thin maternity t-shirts that seemed long and would be more comfortable. Maybe now Cas would stop whining so much about feeling warm.

“You two all set?” Sam asked.

Cas shoved past them, mumbling something about small shoes, disappearing into the change room area, heading back towards the carts.

Sam raised an eyebrow. “What?”

Dean grinned, snatching up a pair of baby shoes. He waved them at Sam as he walked past him.

“I’m buying these. They’re the smallest Doc Martens I’ve ever seen in my fucking life, Sam. I’m buying them for my own amusement. Look!” Dean put them on his fingers, walking them through the air and chuckling. “What are these? Shoes for _ants!?_ ”

Sam groaned.

They eventually made their way back up to the cashier, who thankfully had no one else and could help them immediately. Sam was thankful for that because Cas was leaning on everything, looking uncomfortable, and murmuring things at the ceiling that looked a lot like cuss words and silent threats. Metatron -- or maybe God -- was definitely getting an earful of angry, overheated Castiel.

Dean began to load the conveyor at the cash, smiling at the older lady standing by the till. She smiled back and began to scan in the items. Sam saw her realise all the things were baby items and she looked around.

“Oh!” the woman behind the counter sighed. “Look at _you!”_

Cas and Dean both looked behind them as if she was speaking to someone else. When no one was behind them, they realised she’d been addressing Cas, who then blinked at her.

“Me?” he asked, leaning his head towards her as if he’d heard her wrong.

“You’re practically glowing,” the woman commented, smiling knowingly and throwing Cas a small wink.

Cas sighed heavily, pushing some hair out of his face. Flatly, he replied, “That’s not a glow. That’s sweat.”

As she scanned in baby wipes and orange juice, the woman chortled. “Oh, honey. I remember that stage. You’re at about seven months?”

As Cas said, “uhhhh”, Dean replied quickly with a grin and an assured, “Yes, ma’am.”

“Are you having a rough time, sweetie?” the cashier asked Cas kindly as she began bagging their items. “First baby?”

Again, Cas replied with, “Uhh…”

Like a hero no one wanted, Sam watched Dean paused his task of loading the cart with bags and stepped in to throw an arm around Cas’ shoulders. With a shit-eating grin, he replied with, “Yup. First baby. My girl here is having a rough go of it. Mood swings and hot flashes -- the whole nine yards.”

Under Dean’s charming grin, the woman shifted a bit behind the counter, a weird smile of her own curling on her lips. She glanced around, seeing no other coworkers or customers, and she leaned forward towards Dean and Cas.

“It’s not all bad,” she giggled to Dean. “If she’s anything like I was with my first, the raging horniness should kick in any time now. Don’t be surprised if your girl climbs you like a tree.”

Dean’s jaw dropped and Cas made a sound that he’d never made as a man. It was a high pitched choking noise and his eyes went wide, as if the woman had told one of his darkest secrets. Sam accidentally dropped three bags of chips on the ground when he meant to aim for the conveyor, his eyes wide and doing a double take of the woman.

He attempted to hide his bark of surprised laughter in his sleeve, pretending to cough.

Dean ducked behind Cas to help Sam pick up the chips, leaving Cas standing in front of the woman, his face arranged into horrified shock.

As she continued ringing in their items, the woman laughed and murmured out of the corner of her mouth. “My husband _loved_ it. Between always being ready to go and the porn star boobs, I never let him leave the house. It was the only thing that kept me from being a raging bitch all the time, too.”

“Okay,” Dean breathed, jerking himself upright, shoving chips into Sam’s arms, and pushing himself in front of Cas, who looked shell-shocked. “Uh, what’s our total?”

Cas was going so red in the face that Sam thought he might actually explode. That ‘glow’ was definitely a damp sheen now.

The woman behind the counter took the money Dean was shoving into her hands and laughed, completely unbothered by how flustered Dean and Cas had become.

“Oh, there I go embarrassing you and all. It’s nothing to be ashamed of, honey. Happens to all of us.” She sighed happily, looking nostalgic (and strangely flushed) as she counted the money. “I remember once when I was pregnant we went out for ice cream, and just the sight of my husband licking up the side of a vanilla cone had me all hot and bothered. He never drove home so fast in his life. I left my banana split right on the bench, unfinished!”

Cas looked like he wanted the ground to open up and swallow him alive.

Dean turned to the lady and laughed, though he sounded kind of nervous. While Sam had been alarmed at her initial comments, the reactions from Dean and Cas were funny and Sam found himself grinning. He tried to hide it behind his hand, pretending to scratch his cheek.

“Yeah, right,” Dean chuckled at her, flashing a toothy smile, but snatching the receipt from her too quickly. “Right. Thanks. Uh, that’s great. Thanks. I mean. Yup. Have a good day.”

“You two have a good night,” the woman winked at Dean and Cas. She waved at Cas and chortled, “Enjoy his banana split!”

“Get me out of here,” Cas whispered raspily, wiping sweat from his brow with the back of his wrist.

Dean pushed Cas out from between the tills, hurrying towards their cart. He did a quick glance back and nodded. ‘Mmhmn. Yup.”

“Oh, they’re going to have a great time,” Sam pitched in, patting Dean between the shoulders and winking at the cashier. “I should probably leave them alone and get out of the house for a few hours, huh?”

The cashier giggled with mirth, waving at Sam. “Oh, yes! Yes!”

“Oh my _God_ ,” Dean whispered to Sam, all flustered as he pushed their cart out from between the tills and out towards the exit. “How aggressive was she?”

“I dunno.” Sam grinned. “I thought she was kind of sweet.”

“Oh, shut up, Sam,” Dean muttered. “‘Sweet’. Yeah, okay, ‘sweet’. More like thirsty. Really, really thirsty. Where did she learn to talk to customers like that?”

“It was probably just because Cas is pregnant,” Sam chuckled. “She thought she was being helpful. People get weird when they talk to pregnant chicks. Remember last week at the drugstore? Those three old ladies ambushed Cas and started rubbing his stomach and touching his hair.” Sam paused. “I should’ve taken a picture. Do you remember his face? I thought those old ladies were toast for sure.”

Dean was still on the topic of the cashier. He scoffed and hissed, “I could’ve used about 90% less of her telling everyone how horny Cas is.”

He pushed the cart faster, trying to catch up to Cas, who was trying to waddle his way to the car at a speed that should be impossible for someone so disproportionately front-heavy. His hair flip-flopped across his lower back as his pace quickened. When Cas reached the car, he yanked at the door handle, spinning around fiercely and pointing at the door irately.

“Dean, it’s locked.”

“Calm down. Where are you in a rush to get to?” Dean snapped, tugging his keys from his pocket, pushing the cart with one hand. “Jesus.”

“He’s got your tree to climb at home, Dean,” Sam explained. “It’s urgent. He can’t wait.”

“ _SAM!”_ Cas and Dean yelled.

“Oh, come on,” Sam replied with glee. “You two would make a cute little couple. Dean, you’re gonna be such a good dad.”

Dean threw a bag of diapers at Sam. “Shut your face, bitch!”

“We bought too many diapers, not enough condoms,” Sam fired back, throwing the diapers in the trunk.

Dean grabbed a second bag and began swinging at his brother. “You motherf--”

Cas tilted his head back, staring at the sky irately. “Metatron, one day, I will murder you for this.”

***

Sam should have been sleeping. He’d gone to bed hours ago, but between surfing the net for information about the fallen angels, enjoying some elicit videos that he would never admit to Dean that he watched, and trying to spot any Abbadon-like demonic activity, sleep just wasn’t coming.

He considered going for a drive, but Dean was already angry at him for making fun of him and Cas at the store. After a dinner -- where they shot Sam annoyed glances the entire time -- they’d both gone to hang out in Dean’s room without him. They were pissed, so if Sam borrowed the Impala this late at night, Dean might’ve had a conniption.

Setting his laptop aside, Sam slid under the covers and shut his eyes, hoping boredom would lull him to sleep. But he was awake and alert, so when a small yelp sounded from somewhere in the bunker, Sam tugged himself up onto his elbows.

Then again; that quiet, faraway noise. It dragged on a bit this time, lower. He stared at the door to his room, confused as the disruption went silent. When nothing happened again, Sam convinced himself he’d just had a case of the late-night crazies. It was what he got for staying up until 3:30am when he should have been sleeping.

With a shake of his head to clear it, Sam rested his head back down onto the pillow. But his ears were listening for the sound now. It was a quick, high pitched sighing sound. It sounded like a person. It sounded like a voice…like someone was in trouble.

Quickly, Sam reached under his pillow and grabbed his gun. As he tip-toed out of the room, he snatched up his angel blade from the top of his drawers.

Quietly as he could, he snuck to the kitchen down the hall, to where the noises were coming from. As he drew nearer, the occasional noise turned into more constant noise, though it came and went in waves of volume that were mostly quiet with the occasional punctuated noise of distress.

There were no words being spoken, only gasps. In the back of his mind, he wondered if it was Cas - if he was hurt, if something was wrong. The voice was female, it couldn’t have been Dean.

With a shiver of cold dread down Sam’s back, he wondered if the angels or demons had found a way to enter the bunker… What if they were hurting Cas?

Sam’s footsteps quickened.

He almost twisted around the doorframe into the kitchen, his gun pointed straight ahead of him. But a millisecond before he did that, Sam stopped himself as soon as he peered around the frame.

Cas was definitely not being hurt.

In the darkness of the kitchen, lit by only the glow of the pot lights under the kitchen cabinets and a candle on the kitchen table, Dean and Cas were cast in a dull orange glow as they rocked together.

Sam’s heart plummeted out of his butt. He watched in frozen shock as Dean slowly fucked Cas from behind, rolling his hips and watching himself slide into Cas. Cas, who had his knees on the bench and his hands on the kitchen table, furrowed his brow and squeezed his eyes shut, his lips parted and glistening in the candlelight. His nails dug into the table top and his hair, thrown over one shoulder and falling in wavy, messy tendrils across his face, swung back and forth as Dean thrust in and out of him.

Dean dragged his hands up Cas’ back, pushing up the fabric of the big, white dress shirt, rubbing gentle patterns over his back and shoulders, then down and around the baby bump, his hand resting there. He leaned forward and tenderly lifted away any hair still in Cas’ face, nuzzling his nose into Cas’ temple as his face turned towards him. Cas’ eyes slid open, simultaneously a bright blue but with a dark, lustful look to them, surveying Dean’ hungrily as he moaned slowly and raspily. Dean’s hand curled around Cas’ shoulders, sliding languidly over Cas’ defined collarbone, disappearing under Cas’ mostly unbuttoned white shirt, a hand cupping his breast. Their lips met and they both moaned.

That was when Sam looked away. He was scarred for life.

Sam made his way back to his room before he even knew what he was doing or that time had passed in any capacity. It was like he was having an out of body experience, he hardly felt his feet touch the floor. The mixture of emotions was confusing and anxiety-inducing.

He suddenly felt so tired but also pumped full of righteous fury.

How _dare_ Dean have sex with Cas when Cas was in his state? He was vulnerable; pregnant, hormonal, _dying!?_

Dean didn’t know Cas was dying, but that didn’t fucking matter. Rage pumped through Sam’s veins. It was so fucking _obvious_ , it always had been, how Cas felt about Dean. Everyone they had ever met could see it. But Dean had _never_ shown any inclination of wanting Cas back like that -- hell, Dean spent half of his time being a dick to Cas and making fun of him. For him to take advantage of him just because he found him hot as a woman…it was unthinkable. Sam thought Cas was kinda hot as a woman too but he had no desire to have sex with him. _Gross._

For a moment, Sam hated his brother.

And Cas, well, he was an adult. He was _more_ than an adult; he’d been a supernatural being for thousands of years. Sure, he was human, but that was a recent development. The reality was that Cas was going through some traumatic shit. Maybe he didn’t quite understand that he was being taken advantage of.

Dean saw a hot girl who was horny and confused, and he fucked her. Again; it was unthinkable.

Sam paced in his room.

He should have said something, he should have busted in there and stopped Dean, he should have broken them apart. He should have explained to Cas that he was being taken advantage of. He should have explained to him that this would have never happened if he wasn’t woman-shaped. Dean would never have had sex with him or treated him nicely like he did with the female, pregnant version of himself.

But how could he tell Cas that? How could he reveal how terrible the thing was that Dean had just done?

Ugh, Sam thought in his head, this is so corrupt. His stomach felt all twisted.

Then again… Cas was an adult. Cas was gullible sometimes and gave off the impression that he was naive, but the reality was that Cas was the smartest person in the bunker. He was smart, cunning, brave, logical (for the most part), and had lived his entire life so far as a strategist.

Sam felt a renewed sense of anger.

Cas was a fucking adult. He should have known better than to complicate things with Dean. They already pretended to play mommy-and-daddy out in public when they needed to, they didn’t need to bring it into the bunker! Cas already had Dean feeling like this baby was his. No one said it but everyone knew that was the truth. Dean was invested; he was all in to be a dad. He was all in to raise this kid, to lead some kind of fucked up version of an apple pie life.

Maybe…maybe Dean had been the one to take it too far? Maybe he saw this pregnant girl and her baby, and maybe Dean wasn’t trying to take advantage of Cas at all… Maybe he was actually falling for this girl in their bunker. Maybe seeing Cas as a girl was emotionally confusing.

Sam’s stomach felt worse. He felt sad for Dean if that was true.

He shoved the gun under his pillow and threw the knife onto his dresser too forcefully.

What the hell was going on?

Additionally, he felt scarred by the mental image of Cas and Dean in varying stages of undress, Dean panting behind Cas and Cas rocking back and forth on his hands and knees, biting his lip as he made the most porny-sounding keening noises.

Sam was going to be sick.

He needed to talk to them. He needed to say something, to stop this bullshit before it escalated. He needed Dean to know what he was doing -- fucking girl-Cas, playing house, potentially _falling for_ girl-Cas -- was fucked up. He also needed Cas to know that leading Dean on like this was equally fucked up.

But first, Sam needed to go throw up and toss bleach in his eyes. The scoldings could wait until the morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter will follow tomorrow morning. I'm so tired that my eyes are going crossed!
> 
> Leave me a comment, let me know what you think. :)


	9. The Baby's Daddy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you MalMuses for the beta edit. :)

Typically, when Sam was mad at Dean, some of his feelings of anger usually subsided after a good night’s sleep, but Sam was still livid the morning after he’d walked in on the porno in their kitchen. He’d spent the entire night staring at the ceiling or fixing random pieces of furniture in his room with glares of contempt. He’d gone over everything he was going to say to both Dean and Cas. He’d prepared a speech and imagined different ways he’d breach the conversation. One of them involved punching Dean square in the jaw for being a pervert.

That had almost been the route he’d chosen to take when Sam strode purposefully into the kitchen to find Dean sitting at the table with half of a bagel in his mouth, reading a novel distractedly.

“Dude,” Dean muttered without looking up, mouth still half latched onto his bagel. “Handmaid’s Tale is _dark_.”

“You fucking asshole,” Sam barked, coming to a hard stop at the end of the table, jutting his finger dramatically into the table. “I-I could...hit you right now!”

After plucking the bagel out of his mouth and chewing slowly, Dean stared up at Sam in confusion. “What? Why?”

“Where’s Cas?” Sam barked suddenly, turning around, tilting his body to search his vantage of the war room, as if expecting Cas to just be sitting there.

Dean gestured to the exit with his bagel. “Sleeping, dude. He had a rough night.”

Sam spun on Dean and hissed, “Yeah, _I bet he did._ ”

“What the hell does _that_ mean?” Dean asked, brow furrowed.

“If you continue to play dumb, I might just break your nose,” Sam said.

“Playing dumb?” Dean asked indignantly, waving his hands in the air. “What are you talking ab--”

“I saw you and Cas here last night.”

Dean froze mid-shrug, staring up at Sam. A twinge of realization sparked behind his gaze and suddenly Dean swallowed, lowering his hands to the table.

“You saw…”

Sam leaned closer to Dean, face twisted in anger. “I _saw_. I saw everything, Dean. I saw you fu--” Sam paused to glance over his shoulder. He looked back to Dean with his voice quieter, “I saw you _fucking_ Cas on the table. On our _kitchen table._ ”

The colour visibly drained from Dean’s face and his featured slackened a bit so that he looked petrified.

“I… um…” 

He looked nauseous.

Sam didn’t care. _Good,_ he thought, _feel scared. You should._

“You fucking jerk. You… I can’t _believe_ you! He’s _pregnant, Dean,_ ” Sam spat, now the one waving his arms around. “He’s pregnant and his body looks like a woman's, so your first instinct is to take advantage and fuck him? What? Because he has a vagina, suddenly he’s fair game?”

“What? No!” Dean yelped, the pallor of his face tinged with red on his cheeks. “That’s not--”

“How could you take advantage of his situation like this?” Sam barreled on, shaking his head. “I didn’t think this was something you were capable of, Dean. I mean, I know you can’t keep it in your pants usually, but I expected some kind of restraint. This is _Cas, he’s our friend,_ and he’s in a bad place right now with the baby and...and with his body turning on him. And you took advantage of that to get off. This is all kinds of corrupt and messed up--”

It was Dean’s turn to be angry. He rose to his feet and squared off with Sam. “Okay, first of all, this is none of your fucking business, Peeping Tom!”

“Peeping Tom!?” Sam exclaimed, almost sounding shrill. “You were pounding Cas on our kitchen table, Dean! I heard your porn-noises all the way from my freakin’ room! I thought someone was hurt or something! It wasn’t like I picked the lock to your room to watch you guys going at it!”

“Second,” Dean continued heatedly, “I-I was helping him, okay? He was going out of his mind, he just needed…” Dean paused to look embarrassed, swallowing jerkily, “...release, or whatever.”

“Ew, Dean!” Sam snapped, rolling his eyes. “Don’t make yourself out for being some kind of hero because Cas is all hot and horny, okay? Let’s face it; you took advantage of Cas because you saw an opportunity to get laid.”

Dean reeled, looking hurt. “What kind of predator do you take me for?”

Sam stepped towards Dean, getting in his face. Too caught up in his anger, Sam yelled, “You would have _never_ had sex with Cas if he was in his usual form--”

“Oh, you think so?” 

“I knowso!”

“HOW DO YOU THINK WE GOT INTO THIS MESS IN THE FIRST PLACE?!” Dean screamed back. 

As soon as the words erupted from Dean’s mouth, he leaned away from Sam, his eyes sparkling in surprise. It was like he hadn’t meant to say it, that he didn’t know where the words had come from.

Sam blinked, shaking his head, his rage momentarily suspended while he processed this confusion. 

“What?”

Dean swallowed a few more times, not answering, frightened eyes darting around Sam’s face. He licked his lips and turned away, lowering himself back down into his seat. 

Sam stared at him. “What do you mean by that?”

Dean stared at the book he’d set down, eyes unseeing as they stared at the spine.

Steadily, Dean repeated, “I said…how do you think we got into this mess in the first place?”

Sam stood frozen at the head of the table, finger pressing down on the table top, the tip white as it seemed to support all of his weight.

“What the hell are you talking about?”

Dean’s hands slipped off the table and rubbed at the top of his thighs. “I can’t believe this is happening.”

Sam’s finger jutted down against the table top again, punctuating every word. “What. are. you. talking. about?”

Dean licked his lips and shrugged, not meeting Sam’s eye. “Sam…you should sit.”

“I don’t want to sit, I want answers!”

“You want answers?” Dean laughed bitterly, shaking his head. “Fine. Here are some answers: yesterday wasn’t the first time we’d had sex, okay? There was once in Purgatory and once the night he fell.”

Sam had lied; he did want to sit down. Slowly, he lowered himself onto the bench opposite Dean, his mouth dropped open his eyes wide.

“In…Purgatory?”

Cas had been _extremely_ male shaped in Purgatory. 

And he’d been male shaped when he’d fallen from Heaven.

“Are you saying…”

Dean nodded, eyes diverted again, his finger running over the spine of his book anxiously. “Yeah. That’s what I’m saying.”

Sam’ mouth flapped open a few times, words stuck under a lump in his throat. Cas and Dean had already had sex…twice. With a year apart. They’d had sex when Cas was in a male vessel. 

Twice.

Twice. They’d had sex twice before yesterday. Purgatory. The Fall.

“Wait,” Sam asked abruptly, shaking his head and squeezing his eyes shut while he tried to process the information, “have you been… Have you two… Are you...you guys _together_? Were you guys together for like, the past year or two?”

Dean looked unsure, and he shrugged a bit. He looked shy, almost. 

“No.”

“No?” Sam repeated, blinking. 

“No,” Dean replied through a heavy sigh. “It’s complicated, Sam.”

No kidding it was complicated. Dean had been fucking their angel friend for a year but apparently was not _with_ him and Sam was _so confused._ He had never pegged Cas as the casual fuck buddy type.

Sam ran a hand over his mouth. He let it pause there for a second, then he pointed at Dean. “You gotta explain this to me, Dean. I can’t wrap my brain around this.”

Dean looked up from his book with a weary gaze. He took a deep breath. “We got together in Purgatory.”

“You ‘got together’?” Sam repeated with disbelief. “You just ‘got together’?”

Dean’s jaw clenched, and he glared at Sam. “It was a battlefield in Purgatory, Sam. We were running and fighting all day, we had nothing but each other and Benny. Cas and I… We were always scared we’d lose each other, that one of us would be killed. You wouldn’t understand.” 

“What, so the solution was to have sex with each other?” Sam asked, his tone injected with a strange nervous amusement. “We’ve been in lots of life-or-death situations before, but we don’t usually cope by having sex with our friends. What the hell is going on between you and Cas?”

Dean didn’t look amused. He looked stressed, like all this explanation was hard on him.

“Sam… Cas and I have always had something between us, okay? He’s never just been ‘my friend’ and you know it.” Dean reached up and rubbed the back of his neck. “Anyway we…we spent a night together. Just once, okay? We were heading towards the portal, we were almost out, so close, but we had to stop the night before. We weren’t gonna make it if we forced ourselves to truck through. We were tired. I-I mean, like, even Cas was tired. Benny was tired. We wouldn’t be alert enough to fight beasts if we had to. So, we set up camp and Benny went off to do some recon while we tried to rest. And…and it just happened.”

Dean busied himself with folding down the corner of his downturned book, marking his place and shutting it, his eyes not meeting Sam’s. “It was quick and desperate, okay? But it happened.”

Sam, torn between trying not to picture it and being oddly fascinated, stared at Dean. His eyebrows raised further on his forehead. “And, uh, the second time? Did that ‘just happen’ too?”

“After the fall of the angels, he was a mess. He was just so broken up about it, Sam. I didn’t know what to do to comfort Cas. I’d never seen him like that, so panicked and upset. He…he couldn’t get a grip on himself,” Dean licked his lips, sighing so heavily his shoulders rose and fell, “and it just _hit me_ that he was human. He was human, with all these new emotions that hit him harder than they had as an angel. And, um, y’know, that body was his now. Really his.” 

His eyes finally flicked up to Sam, and Dean looked sheepish. “I guess it just put us on even playing field.”

“Right.” Sam nodded.

“Anyway, he was so torn up about the fall. I took him back to my room and I tried to keep it innocent, to just talk or sleep or, I dunno.” Dean was blushing, actually blushing. “I gave him some clothes to sleep in and tried to get him to get some shut-eye,but he couldn’t sleep so…”

Dean blinked, realising he might be giving away too much information, and exhaled shakily. For some reason, Sam saw the subtle sheen of tears in Dean’s eyes. 

“So, one thing led to another. He made a move on me, Sam. I just didn’t stop him. I didn’t want to.”

At this point, Sam had his head propped up on his hand, staring at Dean in bewilderment. In a whisper, Sam asked, “Were you two together the entire time? All last year? All this year?”

“No,” Dean shook his head. “Cas didn’t come with me out of Purgatory and it fucked me up. And when he came back, I thought something might happen between us again, but then shit got complicated. With the tablet stuff, and with Cas avoiding us and keeping secrets, and…” Again, Dean inhaled shakily, his hands now rested on the tabletop, picking at his nails. “I was mad at him half of the time for ditching us and disappearing with the tablet, for not accepting our help.”

It made sense now. Sam knew Dean had been furious at Cas for disappearing on them, but even he’d thought Dean’s reaction was disproportionate to the offense. 

“So, you’ve been together since the fall then?” Sam asked slowly, unsure if he wanted to know. Either answer Dean was going to give him would be complicated.

Dean shrugged, his head doing a weird hybrid of a nod and a head shake. “No, not since the fall… but recently, yeah. Yeah, we have been.”

Sam sat up straight, pulling his head up off his hands, running his fingers through his hair. Without control, his mind began to backtrack through interactions he’d witnessed between Dean and Cas, trying to find clues, trying to recognize hints that he’d missed. 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Sam asked. To his own surprise, he realised he felt hurt.

“It’s complicated. It’s…just complicated, okay?”

Sam gaped at his brother. “So, let me get this straight, Dean--”

Dean looked like he was gearing himself up for a grueling task.

“-- you and Cas are together, you’ve…uh, had a bunch of sex behind my back--”

Dean snorted. “Were we supposed to have sex in front of you?”

Sam threw Dean a bitch face. “Once was enough.”

“Touché.”

Sam taped at one of his fingers like he was taking a tally, “--and he’s all girl-shaped now, and he’s knocked up.” 

Dean’s lips pressed into a thin line and he went uncharacteristically blank looking. Sam could have sworn Dean was holding his breath.

“Yup,” Dean uttered quickly.

“And that doesn’t bother you?” Sam asked, referring to the mystery father of Cas’ kid. “I mean, it’s a weird situation.”

Dean stood, tucking his book under his arm and picking up the empty plate that had been sitting on the table in front of him. “Yeah, no freakin’ kidding. I still can’t believe how weird our lives are.”

Sam watched Dean turn away from him and walk over to the sink. 

“I mean…so are you guys, uh, in love or whatever?” Sam asked hesitantly.

The plate slipped from Dean’s grasp and clattered into the sink. He released a string of swear words.

“Shit, Sam! Way to throw a guy off!” Dean yelped. “What kind of question is that?”

Sam hesitated. He didn’t want to make Dean feel bad, but the question flashed across his mind like it was a lit-up neon sign: Cas had a nephilim with some guy who he had been in love with. Where did this put Dean? How did Dean feel about it? What did Dean mean earlier when he’d said, ‘how do you think we got into this mess in the first place’?

Sam’s mouth opened to ask that exact question, when Cas entered the kitchen.

“What’s going on in here?” he asked, combing his hair up into a ponytail with his fingers. His bright blue eyes flickered between Dean and Sam, resting on Dean as he picked through the dishes in the sink, fishing out pieces of broken plate.

Dean turned quickly, glancing between Cas and Sam. Sam stared between Cas and Dean. 

Cas look confused, Dean looked nervous, and now Sam felt really fucking awkward. His mind -- the traitorous bastard -- flashed back to the scene he’d witnessed last night. Ugh. 

Also, he realised he was sitting right across from the spot where they’d had sex and Sam abruptly got to his feet.

“Dean broke a plate,” Sam said quickly, instead of blurting out ‘I saw you two having sex last night’, which was a close second on his tongue. He tugged his phone from his pocket and cleared his throat as he moved to leave the room, pretending to be looking something up on his phone. 

“Cas, Sam saw us last night,” Dean murmured, completely derailing Sam’s plan to _not bring it up in front of Cas._

Sam turned around in surprise, shocked that Dean would be the one to lay it all out there, Mister-Avoid-Emotionally-Charged-Conversations. 

Past Cas and almost at the door, Sam stopped and stared at the two of them.

Cas turned to Sam, his eyes wide. 

“Um, Sam… I… We…”

Cas and Sam stared at each other. Sam could feel his cheeks grow red, while Cas appeared to pale.

“Way to make it awkward, Dean,” Sam muttered, shooting his brother a disapproving look. “I wasn’t gonna mention it.”

Cas turned to Dean, “So he knows?”

Dean nodded.

Cas put a hand on the top of his belly and he shifted his feet, exhaling heavily. “Well, that is a relief. The hiding was beginning to feel taxing.”

“Yeah, well,” Sam cleared his throat. “It’s…fine. I’m fine with it. Just…don’t have sex outside of your bedroom where I can walk in on you guys. I, uh, thought you were hurt or something--” Cas went from pale to red pretty quickly-- “and um, well, just don’t, okay?”

“Right,” Cas nodded, shifting his feet again and diverting his eyes. “My apologies, Sam. This is embarrassing.”

Sam sighed. “It’s okay, Cas. I spent most of my life sharing motel rooms with Dean. It’s not the first time I’ve walked in on him--”

“Okay!” Dean said loudly, clapping his hands. “How about we put a kibosh on talking about my sex life?”

Cas frowned at him as he moved to sit down at the table. “Dean, it’s all right. I know about all of the people you’ve slept with.”

Dean strode around the island, gesturing at the both of them. “This conversation is over.”

Cas and Sam smiled at each other as Dean swept out of the room in a huff.

“Seriously, though,” Sam reiterated, his face dropping, looking dead serious. “Don’t fuck my brother in our kitchen. It’s gross. We eat here.”

***

Sam knew, following his talk with Dean in the kitchen, that it wasn’t the last he and Dean would talk about this thing with Cas. Even though Dean had talked more about his love life in those few minutes than he had about any other relationship he’d ever had, Sam had left with the distinct feeling that there was so much more to talk about. 

Oddly, though, Sam hadn’t felt comfortable continuing the conversation in front of Cas. It was a weird dynamic, wasn’t it? To demand information about someone else's relationship when they were both there.

He’d ask Dean more later. 

Sam was still having trouble wrapping his mind around the whole thing. _Dean and Cas were a thing._ How fucking weird was that? Castiel, their awkward angel friend. Their celestial wavelength of heavenly-blah-blah-blah in a trench coat was in a relationship with Dean. Their profound bond was physical now. 

While Dean hadn’t explicitly said that there were feelings between them, it was expressly clear to Sam that Dean wouldn’t just have sex with Cas for purely physical reasons. Sam felt kind of stupid now for blowing a gasket at first. Dean was kind of an asshole sometimes, but Cas really wasn’t some girl in a bar; Dean wouldn’t just use him and lose him. There had to be feelings. There definitely were feelings. 

Sam wasn’t sure why this mattered to him, but it did. He wanted to know. He needed to know what the hell was going on. 

He sat in the library, staring down at a book in front of him. He’d been on the same page for twenty-five minutes, reading the same line over and over for twenty-five minutes. It said something about angel hierarchy, but all Sam could think about was the conversation he’d had with Dean. 

_‘How do you think we got into this mess in the first place?’_ Dean had said. 

What did he mean by ‘mess’? Was he talking about Cas being girl shaped? Was he referring to the way Sam had barged in and began yelling at him? Sam wished he’d pried more about that, because now he was confused and in retrospect, that had been the opener to Dean’s confessions, hadn’t it?

Also, if Dean was in a relationship with Cas, how did that other guy factor in? Had Dean known about him? How did Cas meet up with this mystery guy? If Dean and Cas were in a relationship, that explained Dean’s weird daddy-vibes with Cas’ kid and explained how he was dismissive of any attempts Sam’d made to bring up the actual father.

Fuck. Sam just should have asked when he had the chance. He’d have to ask Dean when he could get him alone.

… which was a problem, Sam discovered.

Rather, he didn’t _discover_ so much as _realise_ that Dean and Cas were never really apart. It was hard to get Dean alone. Before this morning, he hadn’t really thought much about it; they all hung out together in general; researching, to relax, for meals. And hell, now he realised Cas and Dean were sleeping in the same room. There weren’t too many windows of opportunity to get Dean alone. 

All day, without meaning to, Sam had been observing Dean and Cas. Now that he knew what was going on with them, he felt ridiculously stupid and naive. 

How had he _not_ seen that something was going on?

Dean sat with his hand on the back of Cas’ chair. He brought him food and water without so much as an indication that Cas even wanted it. Dean even played with the ends of Cas’ hair behind his back as he read beside him. Dean leaned too close when Cas was showing him something in a large, old tome. 

Cas _smiled._ He smiled a lot (well, when he wasn’t going through a wicked mood swing that made them all want to steer clear). 

Dean wore hair bands around his wrist and casually offered them to Cas when Cas started doing that hair twisting thing to indicate the strands were annoying him. 

They had breakfast together, they went out to the store together, they stayed up late watching movies together. They shared t-shirts, and a bed, and earphones when Dean wanted Cas to watch something with him or listen to the same music. Dean always sat down beside Cas, and vice versa.

They were _always_ together. 

Dean read baby blogs. Dean checked his app. 

Cas let Dean feel when the baby would kick or move. Cas made Dean random sandwiches, always with a cold beer already cracked open for him. 

Dean read books about nephilim. 

Sam’s heart sank deeper the more that he thought about Dean and Cas as a ‘thing’…and Cas was pregnant with someone else’s kid. How confusing must that be for Dean? Sam didn’t know how Dean was handling it. How would Sam handle it if he had a girl who was pregnant, and the baby wasn’t even his own? Dean, Sam thought, was handling it pretty damn well, which was surprising. Surprising and devastating. 

Dean _still_ didn’t know that Cas was going to die. 

The thought made Sam feel a bit breathless. He picked at the corner of the page in front of him, tearing it a bit by accident.

Dean and Cas were a thing…and Cas was going to die.

“Well, shit, Cas, why don’t you just go lie down?” 

Sam could hear Dean and Cas approach. He lifted his head from his fist and smiled at them as they walked into the room, hoping the expression on his face didn’t look as weary as he felt.

“I don’t want to lie down,” Cas growled, waddling into the room and pushing hair from his face, scraping his nail over skin as wispy strands of brown hair clung to his neck. He looked a bit clammy. “Lying down is uncomfortable, I can’t find a comfortable spot, and I can’t sleep. It’s a torment. I would rather just sit here and be useful.”

Dean followed Cas in, looking incredulous. “Dude, these chairs suck. You’d be more comfortable lying down, I swear--”

“I don’t _want_ to,” Cas said through his teeth as he struggled to sit down. 

Sam watched them bicker, noticing Dean looking annoyed and Cas looking about ten times more annoyed. Cas was clearly in one of his moods again. All he did was complain that he was uncomfortable but then refused to go relax.

“Trouble in paradise?” Sam piped in, raising an eyebrow.

If looks could kill, Sam would have dropped dead. He was vaguely surprised the nephilim didn’t smite him.

Dean sat down beside Cas, gesturing pointedly to him. “He’s not feeling well.”

“I feel fine,” Cas snapped, rolling his eyes and pulling a pile of papers sent from Kevin over to himself. 

Dean glared at the side of Cas’ head, then turned to Sam and repeated, “He’s not feeling well. Been nauseous all night, and during breakfast,” Dean leaned forward with a twisted look of disgust on his face, “he _actually threw up in a bowl of Cheerios._ Like, right back up into the bowl.”

“Ew,” Sam said involuntarily, shuddering at the mental image. He wouldn't be able to eat Cheerios again for a while.

“Yeah,” Dean said with vigor. “Fucking gross. More like Cheeri-oh-no.”

Cas glared at the piece of paper in front of him, his cheeks tinted pink with humiliation. “I wasn’t feeling well. It took me by surprise.”

Dean snorted in agreement, though the noise lacked real amusement. “Yeah, buddy. Me too. You’re not supposed to be puking anymore. You should go--”

“ _I am not going to a doctor,”_ Cas interrupted, flipping the paper in his hand over with a bit too much aggression. “I’m fine.”

Sam forgot about his internal struggles for a moment to allow laughter to bubble up in his throat when Dean dragged a finger across Cas’ forehead.

“Yeah, nothing says, ‘I’m fine’ like a sweaty low-grade fever and puking the cereal you just ate right back into the bowl,” Dean fired back, wiping his sweaty finger on Cas’ shirt. 

“You guys are gross,” Sam mused, shaking his head.

Cas’ jaw jumped, and he wiped at his forehead, which did indeed have a slight sheen to it. “You are being very annoying, Dean. Humans get fevers all the time, and Google told me it’s normal.”

“You gonna just trust everything Google says?” Dean fired back, waving his arm in the air. “Google also says that moon landing was faked and that vampires glitter in the sun.”

“Vampires don’t glitter,” Cas replied, looking skeptical.

“Look, stop googling stuff and just go lay down--”

“Dean, I--”

“Just humor me, Cas!” Dean snapped. “Just take the Tylenol I left on the counter and go chill for fifteen minutes. You can take Kevin’s notes with you if you _have_ to do something.”

Sam watched them have a stare-off and was surprised when Cas sighed and pushed away from the table. He snatched up the sheets of paper and walked out of the room. Before he disappeared though, Sam did take in the darker bags under his eyes and the small grunts of discomfort as Cas descended the couple of steps into the war room.

When he disappeared, Sam suddenly saw his chance to speak to Dean. He opened his mouth to talk, but Dean cut him off with an irate little growl and a head shake.

“He’s driving me crazy,” Dean whispered, leaning towards Sam, his eyes slightly wide. Dean poked the table to emphasize his words. “Dude won’t just _relax_. He paces around, and he isn’t doing well, Sam. Something is up. He hasn’t been sick for months and suddenly he’s right back to morning-sickness-day-one. Last night he was so annoyed he couldn’t sleep that he was in tears. _Tears_ , Sam. I--”

Dean stopped talking, licking his lips and suddenly looking embarrassed. 

“What?” Sam asked cautiously. He and Dean were silent for a second, both remembering the scene Sam had walked into. 

Although Sam thought Dean was going to say Cas was in tears because he was horny -- Sam internally cringed -- Dean surprised Sam by explaining, “I, um, was kinda nervous that I’d hurt him, y’know? With the…the sex. He was complaining about cramping and seemed like he was in a lot of pain. For a second, I panicked, y’know? Though he was having the kid right then and there. I mean, I don’t know much about labour and stuff, but…well, it’s too early but, anyway--”

“Dean, you’re rambling,” Sam pointed out, his lip twitching into a smile despite himself.

Dean nodded, rubbing his forehead and allowing himself to look as tired as he probably felt. “Yeah. I know.”

They fell into a silence for a second. Dean reached forward to open his laptop when Sam interrupted the movement with his next words.

“Dean,” Sam said slowly, closing his own laptop to signify a serious conversation, “I want to talk about what you were saying this, um, before.”

“You want details about my sex life?” Dean asked, raising his eyebrows. “You’re making it weird, Sam.”

“No!” Sam insisted. “Gross. _No_. I just… Look, it’s totally strange that you’re _with_ Cas. I need help to process it. There’s a lot going on and I know this thing is between you and Cas, but, well, I’m here too. And I’m your brother and Cas’ friend, so I want to know.”

“Know what?” Dean asked hesitantly, turning his head a bit in question.

Sam scratched his cheek and shrugged. “I have questions.”

Dean’s eyes narrowed a bit and he puckered his lips slightly as he seemed to have an internal struggle. 

“Questions? Uuuh...” he shrugged. “I guess. What exactly did you want to know?”

“You explained how you guys hooked up, right? And I know you guys have a-a bond or whatever. But how did _that_ ,” Sam gestured, waving his hand in the air, before waving his hand in the direction of Dean’ and Cas’ seats, “become _this_.”

Dean scrubbed his hand over his lips then dropped it into his lap. “How much detail do you want?”

Sam fixed Dean with a helpless shrug. “I dunno. Just help me understand.”

Dean was quiet for a second, and he averted his eyes, staring down at the tabletop. He lifted a hand and ran his fingernail over a groove in the wood.

“After the first night here, after the fall, Cas kind of, I dunno, fell into a depression? He didn’t get out of bed, he didn’t talk, he just kind of slept his way through an entire week. And I wanted to help but he had shut down and you were so sick... I had to focus on you.”

Dean took another lengthy pause like he was considering his next words very, very carefully and was struggling. “Don’t ask me how it started, but to try and get him to move around and talk, we spent a lot of time in my room. Eventually, we ended up kind of, I dunno, like, nesting in my room? I…I guess it was the comfort we both needed.” Dean was scratching behind his ear, looking embarrassed. “It was really hard with you being sick, Sam.”

Sam felt a pang of regret and guilt. He knew how Dean was about him, about always wanting to protect him. He couldn’t imagine how worried Dean must’ve been with Sam bedridden and unconscious, especially if Cas was nearly catatonic. 

Dean seemed to answer his internal questions; “It was really hard. With Cas, I rationalized that we were seeking comfort in each other because everything was so nuts, but then you healed and got better, and I managed to get Cas to get out of bed, to start taking care of himself. I showed him basic stuff; showering, shaving, making breakfast, using the laptops. Y’know, basic stuff. Then it escalated into me letting him borrow my clothes and use my stuff.” 

Dean laughed in a small nostalgic huff. 

“It got really domestic before I even knew what was happening. Even though he was feeling better, he still slept in my room with me. I-I didn’t fight it because I…I didn’t want to. The whole year before that had been fucked up and really hard on whatever was going on between us, so we latched onto this thing we started after the fall, maybe…maybe trying to fix what broke between us?”

Sam couldn’t help but smile supportively, the same smile he reserved for victims they interviewed during cases. 

Dean didn’t see it, though. He continued to pick at his fingernails. “It felt nice to have someone there at night, Sam. For the few weeks you were stuck in bed, I had this weird semblance of an apple pie life. Cas and I hung out all day and shared meals together and took naps together and it was fucking weird, but it was really, really nice. We talked and--” The embarrassed glimmer in Dean’s eyes morphed into something that looked like happiness. “-- we weren’t hooking up, but there was a weird comfort, um, _thing_ between us that we never had before when he was an angel.”

Sam made a little amused noise through his nose, feeling a strange swell of pride for his brother. Dean looked up at the noise and shrugged.

“The thing between me and Cas was easy. We stopped caring about boundaries and these made up ideas about what was wrong and right. We just _lived_ for a few weeks.”

As Dean rambled, it occurred to Sam how strange it was that Dean was pouring his heart out. He’d never revealed this much detail about Cassie or Lisa. Sam hardly knew anything about Lisa, even though Dean had lived with her for a year. 

Watching Dean now, Sam found himself unable to interrupt, drinking in the distinct expressions on Dean’s face of content nostalgia and memories of freedom. The way Dean’s confession was pouring out made Sam feel like Dean had been dying to talk to someone about this for a long, long time, even though he had pretended he hadn’t wanted to.

Dean shifted in his seat and he leaned his elbows on the table, crossing his arms. The soft smile on his lips faded a bit.

“But then he started sleeping in his own bed and stuff suddenly got not-easy. You were recovered, and I initially thought he was sleeping in his own room so our cover wouldn’t get blown, but then sometimes when we found some time alone, he wouldn’t want me to touch him. I-I mean, we weren’t having sex, but he started changing in the bathroom and locking the door to his room and,” Dean scratched at the back of his head, his face pinched, “I was pretty pissed.”

Sam opened his mouth to say something. It occurred to him that he should have some kind of reaction other than listening raptly with his mouth hanging open. 

“When did this happen?”

“A bit before that time we ran into Abaddon.”

“Oh!” Sam exclaimed suddenly, then lowered his voice. “Is that why you two were pissy with each other on the way to New York?”

Dean laughed nervously. “Yeah…yeah, I guess we were pretty annoying, huh?”

Sam shook his head. “You guys were fighting like an old married couple. I wanted to jump out of the car by the end of it.”

“Yeah,” Dean concurred, sighing. “I’d called him out on essentially, um, moving out of my room? We fought about it. I asked him what was going on, but he just deflected and said nothing was wrong.” Dean huffed out an amused little laugh. “But it was bullshit because something changed. We went from this weird couple-y limbo to regular old Dean and Cas. We still hung out and researched together but there was a weird barrier up. It was a mind fuck.”

“What happened?” Sam asked, invested in the story. Frankly, he was curious and straight up in awe that his ‘straight’ brother was telling him about his secret gay love affair with their angel friend. 

Their lives were peculiar. Never a dull moment.

Dean snorted. “What happened? Well, after you ran into my room to tell me Cas had a girl in his bed—”

Sam’s eyes went wide, and his mouth dropped open. “ _Dude_ … You were _so_ pissed that morning. Shit! I totally led you to believe Cas had brought home a girl.”

“Yeah,” Dean agreed, shaking his head and looking shocked all over again. “Imagine my freakin’ surprise? Cas starts to ghost me and then he brings _a girl home?_ I was so freakin’ pissed.”

“Oh, dude. I’m sorry,” Sam apologized, though he couldn’t help but grin.

Dean grinned a bit too and continued, “Anyway, when Cas woke up as a full-frontal Charlie’s Angel I realised he’d been ditching me because he was embarrassed about how his body was changing. Remember when he talked about sh—”

“—shrinkage,” Sam finished for him.

Dean snorted. “Yeah, exactly. I mean, it was hard to stay mad at him after that, y’know? Imagine your dick started to disappear, and you lost a bunch of weight, and your hair is growing like crazy, and your bones were shifting around? Can’t blame a dude for being shy.”

The brothers shared a nod of mutual agreement.

“That entire day was a mind fuck. Cas woke up as a chick and I realised why he was being weird around me, and then by the time we went to bed, we’d run into the angels and we did those pregnancy tests. He was so upset that night that all of the weirdness from before was forgotten. We ended up sleeping in the same bed again and we haven’t stopped since.”

The silence was heavy once Dean went quiet. He turned his laptop towards him but didn’t open it, instead slipping his nail over the grooves in the Apple logo. Sam watched him run his fingernail over the crease.

“So, you and Cas have been together since he found out he was pregnant?”

For the millionth time today, Dean said, “It’s complicated.”

“Dude.”

Dean’s green eyes flickered up to meet his gaze. “It is, Sam. As soon as we all found out, yeah, we went back to how we were before he’d ‘ghosted’ me. But it was different. He was in this body I hardly recognized and it felt wrong to do anything vaguely, uh…”

Dean’s gaze flickered up to Sam. He was embarrassed.

“Sexual?” Sam offered, shifting uncomfortably.

Dean nodded. “Yeah. It felt wrong to me, though he was _definitely_ down sometimes. Like, we didn’t do anything ‘cause I didn’t want to take advantage. We didn’t even kiss when he was in that form, not at first. I didn’t want him to think I was only interested in him more because of this new girl-shaped version of him… anyway, it was more innocent. It was new territory for us. The thing between us before had been confusing and complicated and this time it was… I dunno, slower, more thoughtful, more innocent? I dunno the word, man.”

“Intimate?”

“Maybe,” Dean muttered, his cheeks tinted pink. “It felt like we were closer. And after I thought about it more and more; he was human, he was a girl, he was fucking _knocked up_. I felt this overwhelming need to protect him, y’know?”

Sam felt a twinge of guilt for accusing Dean of being a predator, of taking advantage of Cas. Clearly Dean had thought this through more thoroughly than Sam had previously thought.

“We were in this limbo where we were acting like friends that were too close, buddies that spent too much time together, and - and being couple-y.” Dean shrugged, and Sam nodded like he understood, urging Dean to continue. 

“You said recently stuff changed. What happened?” Sam asked. “What made you be _Dean and Cas_ now?”

Dean smiled a tiny, odd smile. “We went to that doctor’s appointment and ran into those demons. We got so close to something really bad happening. Cas could’ve gotten hurt, captured, I dunno - killed? It changed things. By the time we’d driven back to the bunker, the vibe had changed. It’s like we’d given up all pretenses of trying to be friends. We kissed for the first time since he ‘changed’ and, um, well… yeah. That’s how it’d been until last night. He was hormonal and frustrated and…there were a lot of emotions, it just escalated, and we couldn’t hold back anymore. I tried to be a gentleman, I swear, but he was just so persistent! He _really_ _wanted it,_ you know--”

Sam raised a hand quickly. “Dude. Okay. Got it. I, unfortunately, saw exactly what happened.”

“Yeah,” Dean blushed. “Sorry, man. We just got carried away. Cas didn’t exactly want to wait to get to the bedroom, if you know what I me--”

“Dean!” Sam interrupted. “I mean it, I don’t need the overshare. And you still haven’t told me why you guys decided to hide this from me. Did…did you think I would judge you?”

Dean licked his lips and shrugged.

“Maybe?” he said, glancing up at Sam. Dean’s face was a bit tinged with red, high on his cheekbones. Dean tried to visibly shrug off his embarrassment. “Look, Sam, we didn’t tell you because we didn’t know what we were doing or what was going on. The vibe was weird and well, Sam, how did you want us to explain that to you? ‘ _Oh, hey, Sam, I know we’ve never given any indication of wanting to fuck each other, but turns out we’re super gay together. Oh, and your brother, who you’ve believed to be straight, is kinda bisexual. Go process that and accept it, then come back and act like everything is normal. We have research to do_!’” Dean mocked, miming his story in exaggerated gestures. Then Dean stopped. “Come on, Sam. What did you want us to say?”

Dean had a point. That did sound like the world's most convoluted soap opera, and Sam knew Dean - he didn’t _do_ relationships. Sam tried to imagine Dean trying to navigate the dating game and he nearly laughed trying to do so.

“What’re you smiling at?” Dean grumbled.

Sam rubbed at his lips, realising he was indeed kind of smiling. He shrugged. “Of course you’d stumble your way into a relationship by accident. How did this even happen in the first place? I mean, I knew you and Cas always had a weird friendship but honestly, dude, I never knew it was a gay thing.”

Dean raised his hands to his face and rubbed his eyes. With a sigh, he explained, “It…it’s always been there, Sam. Ever since Cas and I met, there was a tension. He wormed his way into our family and then he was around all the time, and I figured these feelings I had were all part of our profound or celestial bond or whatever, but then it seemed to ramp up over the past few years. I realised I couldn’t stop thinking about him and when he was gone, I was so worried I felt sick _all the time_. Whenever we thought he was dead, I felt...empty.” 

Dean pressed a hand to his stomach and his face twisted sadly, his eyes looking like he was being taken back to his memories of grieving. “And then he would come back and every time he did, every time I got him back, I got closer to the realization that I love him.”

The brothers sat frozen at the table, staring at each other. Dean looked hesitant, staring at Sam, and Sam knew that look. 

Dean was on edge, worried how Sam would react. 

Sam sat frozen, staring at Dean, his eyes a bit wide and his mouth parted. 

Dean was in _love_? Dean loved someone? Dean _said he loved someone._

All the anger that had remained in Sam drained away almost instantly. All that remained was a swelling, growing feeling in his chest. It was wonderful and felt pure. This was something Sam had always wanted for Dean; to be happy, to feel loved, to be cared for. Dean was in love and he was getting to experience a relationship. He had someone who wanted him back and was putting that dopey look on his face and--

Castiel was going to die.

A smile had been growing on Sam’s face, but it began to melt instantly into a look of shell shock. 

Dean was in love and he thought Cas was going to live. Sam knew Dean better than he knew himself and he knew, under the layers of skepticism and cynicism, under the hard exterior and the jokes, Dean was a dreamer. He dreamed about a life that was normally, he longed for relationships and bonds and family. Sam’ head began to ache just imagining what kind of dreams Dean had invested in this relationship and in the kid that was growing inside of Cas.

Perhaps Dean misread the look of shock on Sam’s face for rejection, because he barreled on, his face taking on an anxious quality. His words were rushed and desperate to explain, to make Sam understand.

“Um, anyway, the baby thing happened and the reason we didn’t tell you about us then was because Cas was acting really weird at the beginning. He’d kind of, I don’t know, retreated into himself again. He didn’t want to talk about the baby and he didn’t want to talk about anything, really. It was only after the doctor’s visit that he opened up again. Not completely, but he was happier than before. 

“Another reason we didn’t tell you then because we kind of just wanted to enjoy each other for a bit, we didn’t want to be made fun of. And not to mention the baby thing complicated everything. I was secretly pretty scared, and everything freaked me out, and I didn’t need the stress of whatever reaction you’d have on top of it--” 

Sam rested his elbows on the table and leaned forward, sliding his fingers across his scalp. He rested his forehead in his palms. 

At Sam’s reaction, Dean felt silent.

Then, “Please don’t be mad, Sammy.”

Sam’s head snapped up and he found himself gazing a Dean’s nervous face, his eyes earnest and vulnerable looking.

“Mad?” Sam repeated. In a rush, he breathed, “Dude, I’m not mad.”

His heart hammered in his chest. With a surge of bravery, Sam asked, “You love Cas?”

Dean nodded.

“And he loves you back?”

That was the question that was making Sam’s head hurt. Dean was, in his own clumsy way, pretty much waxing poetry about Cas, but Cas had been acting really closed off since the fall. Sam desperately hoped that Cas wasn’t taking advantage of Dean because he wanted to be cared for.

But Dean nodded. “Yeah, Sam. He does.”

“He _told_ you?” Sam pressed.

Dean shook his head. “Well, no, but--”

“Then how do you know?” Sam asked suddenly, a new anger leaking into his words. “Because how can he love you and also love that other guy?”

Dean’s jaw dropped.

Sam felt guilty. He knew it would hurt Dean to think about it but he needed to think about it, because it was an important piece of the puzzle. Like Hell if Sam was going to let Cas make Dean feel like this kid’s dad if he, a) didn’t love him back, and b) he was just going to die and let Dean believe this illusion forever.

“...the other guy?”

“Yeah,” Sam said bitterly. “The one who he loved _more than God_. He made a nephilim with him, Dean. It wasn’t just a hook-up, they were in love. Fuck. I mean, surely you guys talked about him? Please tell me you’ve talked about him.”

Dean’s open mouth gaped a bit, opening and closing as he struggled for words.

“Sam…” Dean shook his head at him, his eyes narrowing a bit. They swept across Sam’s face, looking for something. “Are you joking?”

Sam blinked. “What?”

Dean pressed a hand to his chest. “Dude, _I’m_ the ‘other guy’. Are you serious? I just finished telling you that Cas and I hooked up after he fell and that he was in the bunker for weeks after. What the hell did you think happened?”

Sam’s hands came up and cupped his mouth and nose, staring at Dean through wide eyes. His heart hammered in his chest.

Holy shit. Dean was right. He _had_ just told him that, but Sam hadn’t connected the dots. He wasn’t sure what he’d been thinking exactly. Maybe he thought that Cas had hooked up with the guy right before he fell? Maybe he thought Cas had snuck out of the bunker to meet his lover… 

Now every ‘plausible’ story seemed completely not-plausible. Sam sunk into a restless pit of emotions. He was shocked, he felt stupid, he felt rage, he…felt a swell of love. 

His eyes stung with prickling tears. Into his hands, he whispered, “The baby is yours?”

Dean’s lips twisted into a smile. His face lit up. He nodded quickly and breathed, “Yeah, Sam. It’s mine.”

Sam inhaled shakily into his hands, a tear slipping down his cheekbone. 

“And you and Cas? You’re together. You’re in love?”

“Yeah, Sam,” Dean laughed and the fingers he had pressed against his shirt gripped the material. “We are.”

Shaking, Sam’s hands lowered from his face and he dragged one palm over his cheeks. 

“So, this whole time,” he whispered, “you’ve been all excited because it-it’s really your baby?”

Dean looked teary-eyed too and he nodded, laughing, “Yeah, man. That’s my kid in there.”

“Holy shit,” Sam choked out, wiping his nose on his sleeve. His chest hurt horribly as he watched Dean’s face brighten. The happy look on his face broke Sam’s heart.

Sam almost wanted Dean to shut up when he said happily, “I’m so excited. I-I never let myself get excited about anything because shit never works out for us, but this could be something new for us, man. I feel like this will be different. I’m letting myself just be optimistic. I never, ever do that but fuck, man, this is…this is great.”

 _No, Dean,_ Sam thought desperately. _Stop._

“Cas and I are gonna have this kid and we’re gonna get his old vessel back eventually and…I feel like life might actually get better?” Dean said with a little lift, like a question. He let his hand drop from his chest and fall into his lap. “We might be able to do something really good in this world, Sam. This is Cas’ kid. Cas is… He’s _good_ , y’know? This baby will be good too.”

Sam was quiet. He wanted to speak but there was a lump in his throat now. Everything hurt, nothing felt good, and his chest ached with guilt and pain.

“I don’t know why this feels different, Sam. We didn’t ask for it, but it’s happening and fuck, it feels different. I don’t feel dread for the future anymore,” Dean laughed again, and Sam wanted to scream. “I have something I didn’t even know I wanted, and I don’t feel bad or depressed anymore. I just feel like I have something to look forward to for the first time in years. I--”

It came out without any control. Sam felt his mouth open and he felt his lips moving like he was being controlled by something else.

“Dean, I have to tell you something,” he choked out, another tear tumbling down his face. 

Dean stared at him, his brow twitching down into a frown.

In a rush of breath, Sam whispered brokenly, “Cas is going to die.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ooooooo, DRAMA.
> 
> Let me know what you're thinkin' in the comments. :D


	10. The Stages of Grief Pt. 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to MalMuses for the beta edit. :D

It was horrible.

Sam realised why Cas hadn’t told Dean that he was dying. 

Sam always prided himself on knowing his brother better than anyone else on the planet, but he was beginning to think maybe Cas knew Dean just as well—and in this situation, maybe even better. 

It had been a mistake, perhaps, to tell Dean. Maybe Cas had known exactly how Dean was going to react. If Sam had known too, he might have kept the secret to himself, or at the very least, up until the end of Cas’ pregnancy. Now he, Cas, and Dean would have to deal with this shit-storm for potentially two more months.—

He knew about the stages of grief - he vaguely recalled them from his first-year psychology class in college: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. He also knew some people didn’t follow all the steps in order, or even at all. Dean, it seemed, was right on the mark with the first few steps.

Like the last few time Sam had tried to breach the idea that Cas wasn’t going to make it, Dean had denied it at first. 

“No, Sam,” he’d shaken his head. “No. He’ll be fine. No one is dying, we’ll make sure he’s taking it easy. We’ll do research, we’ll make sure we do everything right. We’ll go to a hospital—”

And then when Sam explained that human vessels _never_ survived, that it was just how nephilim were born, Dean had a peculiar reaction. As he listened to Sam explain, as he took it in and realised that this wasn’t just Cas being scared he’d die, that it was fact, that it was essentially guaranteed, Dean’s face went blank. He took in the information in silence. Sam watched him as words poured from his own mouth, feeling worried as Dean lost all his colour.

Sam explained that there was no way to save him—he’d spent months looking—but it was what it was; Cas’ body wouldn’t survive the birth of the nephilim. There just wasn’t enough grace in him to keep him alive. He would die. He would never be his old vessel again, and he would surely go to Hell because it was unlikely the angels would let his soul go to Heaven.

He was worried Dean was going to pass out or throw up or straight up go catatonic, but Dean’s blank face morphed into an arrangement of darkness. His eyes got furious and his pale face regained some colour on his cheeks and up his neck; he was pissed.

Sam had tearfully kept asking him if he was okay, kept trying to say sorry, but Dean ignored him as he rose from his seat and walked over to a shelf, quickly pouring himself a drink of aged whiskey and shooting it back.

When Dean turned to Sam, Sam expected for him to deny Cas’ death again, maybe even declare that he’d find a way to fix this, to save him

To Sam’s surprise, Dean whispered, his words dripping with venom; “You couldn’t let me just have this, could you?”

Sam had reeled back a bit, confused. “What?”

Dean swept his hand, holding the empty glass, towards the exit of the library. His face was twisted in anger. “You couldn’t let me just be happy about this, could you? Ever since we found out about the nephilim, you’ve been fighting me about being happy about it. And-and now you tell me this? You fucking tell me, after I pour my fucking stupid heart out to you, that Cas is gonna die? I—I talked to you _twice_. Twice, Sam. I spilled my fucking guts out to you and you didn’t stop me once to tell me the truth. You just let me babble on and—and... _fuck_!” 

Dean stepped towards the table, slamming the glass down. He leaned heavily on the tabletop, his fingers digging into the wood. His green eyes looked dark as his pupils dilated. 

“You tell me this when Cas has two months left to live?” he whispered in a frighteningly steady manner. He tilted his head. “I have to look at Cas for two months, knowing he’ll be gone? Knowing he’s going to die? _Why would you tell me this now?”_

With an awful sinking feeling, Sam realized he didn’t have a good answer for that. _I wanted you to know, you deserved to know_ didn’t seem like a good reason anymore, not when Dean looked broken and shaking with fury, not when he knew now that Dean and Cas were helplessly in love, and that the baby growing in Cas was actually Dean’s. 

“I’m sorry,” Sam had replied. “Cas told me months ago, and I’ve just… I just thought you deserved to know. I didn’t want you to be blindsided. I wanted you to be prepa--”

He’d hoped his voice conveyed how regretful he was, and he tried to pour how he felt into every word, but Dean interrupted by whipping the glass across the room. It burst into pieces against a cement pillar and Sam jumped at the sound. Before he could relax again, Dean was sweeping out of the room. 

It was horrible.

Dean and Cas screamed at each other for nearly an hour. For the first thirty minutes, it had just been Dean. During that portion, Sam distinctly picked up the word ‘liar’ several times. Cas joined in about halfway through, sounding desperate, then angry too, then heart-wrenchingly sad. 

Even far away, from his frozen, regretful, guilty perch in the library, Sam heard most of it, though he couldn't pick out exact words. The intonations were enough to get the gist that something painful and heartbreaking was happening behind that closed door. 

When he couldn’t take it anymore, after he’d spent forty minutes telling himself he’d made a huge mistake, feeling terrible for hurting Dean, feeling even worse when he realised that he’d violently betrayed Cas’ trust, Sam got up to intervene. He couldn’t just sit there and pretend this drama wasn’t his fault. He couldn’t just let Cas sit there and be yelled at when Sam deserved half of the brunt of that anger.

Sweeping through the corridors, approaching the sound of the fight, steeling himself to get between Dean and Cas, readying his argument, and finalizing his apology (to both Dean and Cas), Sam paused outside the bedroom. His hand had been half-raised to the door.

“How am I supposed to do this without you?” Dean asked, his voice wrenching. 

Sam’s hand wavered in the air.

There they were again, those awful, gasping sobs. Cas was crying. 

“You’ll be a-alright, Dean,” Cas rasped, his voice thick. “You don’t need me, you'll have Sam to help you with G—”

“ _Don’t_ say her name _.”_ Dean interrupted, sounding ripped apart. “I meant…Cas, how the hell am I going to-to move on without you? We didn't get enough time. We didn't get enough time together and now you're going to… I can't take this again. I don't think I can do this again.”

Cas didn't reply immediately. Sam just heard a series of trembling gasps. 

Then, “Please, Dean. Don’t.”

“Get your shit together and move back into your own room. I can't do this if you're going to d…disappear. It hurts too much.”

“Please—”

“I can't invest myself in you anymore. I'll break, Cas. I won't be able to keep myself together.” There was a pause. “If I'm gonna be around for the kid, I can’t keep doing this thing with you.”

Sam’s hand was trembling. What had he done? 

The door opened and Cas stood in front of him. Dean has his back turned, his shoulders a hard line. 

Sam stepped back as Cas walked out into the hall, his glistening blue eyes never leaving Sam’s face. 

When the door clicked closed behind him, Cas stared at Sam for a long series of moments.

He sniffed and shook his head, a long wispy brown lock swaying against his cheek. 

Brokenly, Castiel whispered, “I told you not to say anything.”

Sam’s back hit the wall gently. He was nodding furiously, trying to speak but unable to make a sound over the lump in his throat. 

For a long moment, Cas stared at him, tears still leaking out of the corner of his eyes and running down his face. Then he swept away and disappeared into his room next door. 

The door clicked shut.

***

The atmosphere in the bunker for the next few days was dark. Sam mourned how it had been before; so comfortable and easy, despite the antics with angels and demons. Then Sam had to go ruin it. After his confession to Dean, the comfort around the bunker had dissolved and it seemed like every occupant inside it was suffering alone, avoiding each other and allowing the drama to pervade their interactions.

It was incredibly lonely, Sam noticed, to have both Dean and Cas upset with him. He wished for those days when they would all spend time together, eating, researching, relaxing. Now he barely saw anyone but his own reflection in the mirror. 

Cas left his room to get food, go be sick in the bathroom, and collect books from the library. He seemed to look worse every day, with the circles under his eyes, a struggle to his walk, and a semi-permanent fatigued air to him. The baby bump was bigger than he seemed to know what to do with and Sam noticed him having to stop every few steps to catch his breath. The clamminess to his skin was developing into a permanent sheen. His hair was thrown up into a messy ponytail which barely contained the wild waves. Any offer of help from Sam was shot down immediately, if not blatantly ignored.

Dean straight up left for most waking hours of the day and spent any time at the bunker either in his room listening to music too loudly, or in the garage, where he worked on his car. Sam wondered where he went all day, but Dean was taking page out of Cas’ book; either shutting him down or blatantly ignoring him. The most he said to Sam over the course of a few days was, “What is with you and not minding your own business?” when Sam asked why Dean had returned to the bunker with blood splattered on his hand and shirt.

When Kevin called and asked how Cas and Dean were, Sam said, “Great. Better than ever.” 

 

He wanted stuff to be okay with _someone_ out there. 

***

Sam couldn’t sleep. 

For obvious reasons, he tossed and turned. He felt incredibly lonely and overwhelmingly guilty for what he did. He had caused Dean and Cas immeasurable amounts of pain. Cas was struggling and lonely too, he could tell. He knew, while Dean was suffering painfully, so was Cas. He was the other half of that angsty duo and ultimately, he was the one who had it worse; he was going to die, he would never meet his child, and if Dean didn’t change his mind, Cas was going to die miserable, alone, and depressed.

Sam rolled over, reaching for his iPad. When his fingers met the smooth wood of his nightstand, he clicked on the light and realized he’d left the gadget in the library. He flopped onto his back, sighing at the ceiling. After gathering some energy, Sam lifted himself out of bed and wandered through the hallways towards the library in search of his tablet.

While he wasn’t under any illusions that he was the only night owl in the bunker, it was almost four in the morning and Sam saw dull blue light flickering under the door to the small, damp TV room tucked into the corner of the war room under the stairs.

Curious, Sam forgot all about his tablet and ducked under the stairs, pushing open the door. 

He felt a sad little pang in his chest. 

Cas was lying on his side on the couch, tucked under some blankets, head resting on a fluffy white pillow. He was wide awake, watching a movie with a frown on his face. His hand rested on the side of his swollen belly. His long brown hair was thrown up into a ridiculously messy ponytail that flopped over his shoulders and covered his neck.

“Cas?” Sam asked quizzically.

Cas lifted his head from a pillow. He glanced up at Sam, then scowled and lowered his head back down, tugging the covers up a bit to cover his belly. His eyes swiveled back to rest on the television screen.

“Hello Sam,” he murmured.

It was more than Cas had said to him in days, so Sam stepped into the room and closed the door behind him. Cautiously, Sam across the room and lowered himself into an armchair by Cas’ feet. Cas’ eyes flickered from the screen to Sam’s face, then back to the screen, the furrow between his eyes deepening.

Sam flashed him a tight smile. “Why are you up so late, Cas?”

“Couldn’t sleep,” Cas replied quietly.

Sam could only imagine why. He shifted in his seat and turned towards the television. 

“What’re you watching?”

Cas was quiet for too long and Sam figured Cas was doing his ‘blatantly ignoring him’ thing again, but when Sam sighed and placed his hands on the armrests, poised to lift himself out of the seat, Cas replied.

“Prometheus.”

Sam paused, remaining in his seat. His lip twitched and a bit of amusement sparked in his chest. 

“You’re watching an Alien movie?”

Cas’ frown deepened. “I didn’t know this film was about science fiction,” he explained gruffly. “I thought it was about Greek mythology.”

“It is _not_ about Greek mythology,” Sam chuckled. He slowly eased himself back down. “Why didn’t you turn it off when you realised?”

“I thought it might take my mind off of…” Cas trailed off, fingers digging into the blanket. He seemed to remember half-way through his sentence that he was supposed to be angry with Sam. One of his thin hands came up and he rubbed at his eyes.

Sam scratched at his head and winced. “Did it work?”

“No,” Cas sighed. “One of the main characters becomes impregnated and forcibly aborts her alien offspring by cutting it out of her stomach.”

Sam’s heart sank. “Oh.”

Cas hummed in agreement.

They fell into silence. Sam didn’t dare speak again because he didn’t want to jinx the near-amiable quiet that he was sharing with Cas. Instead, he stayed quiet and watched the remainder of the movie.

He kept his eyes on the screen, looking but not watching. There were so many things he wanted to say to Cas, all different angles he could take to apologize, to defend himself, to rationalize everything. But he didn’t say a word. Every time he worked up a modicum of courage to speak, he saw Cas’ broken face whispering, “ _I told you not to say anything,”_ and he heard Dean’s shattered voice asking Cas, “ _How am I supposed to do this without you?”_

But the credits started to roll and Sam realised that something had to be said. The silence was getting awkward now that they didn’t have a movie to distract them from the tension between them. 

After clearing his throat, Sam turned his head to look at Cas, who was staring at the rolling credits with bit too much concentration to truly convince Sam that he really cared who was Idris’ Elba’s makeup artist or who the second A.D was on the second unit.

“Listen, Cas—” Sam started, but Cas cut him off.

“Did you come to say ‘I told you so’? Cas asked, his eyebrow raising at the television.

“What?” Sam asked, reeling back a bit, blinking rapidly in confusion. “No, I—”

“I asked you not to say anything to Dean.”

Cas’ words were monotone and steady, but Sam could tell by the clenching of Cas’ jaw and his unblinking stare that Cas was angry.

Sam relaxed in his chair and swallowed thickly. “I know.”

“I asked you not to say anything. I asked you to trust me. I told you I would tell him, and instead you chose to betray my trust and go against your word.”

Again, Cas’ voice was flat, although by the lack of pauses and the forced look of calm on Cas’ face, Sam could tell that he’d been thinking about what he was going to say through the entire movie, just as Sam had been.

Sam licked his lips, his mouth suddenly dry. 

“Cas…” Once again, Sam struggled to remember all the things he had planned to say. Clearing his throat, he said, “I’m sorry. I was trying to look out for Dean. That’s all I was trying to do.”

The credits finished, and the Netflix logo appeared on screen. Cas made no effort to change that. He just stared at the screen and shifted his head on the pillow.

Sam’s fingernail dipped into a groove on the end of the armrest, picking at the ornamental wooden adornment under his hand.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you, Cas. I didn’t know Dean would react like that. I knew he’d be pissed, and I knew he’d fly off the handle, but I didn’t… God, Cas, I’m sorry. I didn’t know he’d do what he did, that… that he’d...” _Leave you. “_ I didn’t know. I had no idea.”

“Neither did I,” Castiel admitted in a small whisper, the stoic look on his features slowly melting away. His face became more open, more vulnerable. Sam’s heart squeezed.

“Regardless of what I was trying to do,” Sam continued, picking up on his original point, “I told you I wouldn’t say anything and went against what you asked. I should have let you handle it. I just saw Dean get more and more invested, and you hadn’t said _anything_ , Cas. It’s been months since you told me you’re going to die. It was getting harder to watch Dean get invested, he was just so _happy_ , and-and then he told me that, um…”

Again, Sam hovered on the precipice of revealing secrets that weren’t his to reveal. He didn’t know if Cas and Dean had talked about love. He’d been about to say, ‘he told me that you two are in love’, but bit back the comment, not wanting to be a rat _again_.

“He told me that the kid was actually his, that you two were together--” Sam paused, nearly about to scold Cas for hiding that information from him, but he digressed. Sam shifted forward in his chair, sitting on the edge, more actively engaged in the conversation. 

Cas’ eyes flickered down to him now that he was in his field of vision, but he snapped his blue eyes back up at the television, eyeing the Netflix logo with a gloomy expression.

“I guess it was really hard to hear him be so excited, knowing that he was invested in some future with you. It just came out, Cas. It was an accident. I-I regret what he did and how he reacted, but I did it because I thought I was doing the right thing,” Sam said. He pressed a hand to his chest, leaning forward a bit, hoping Cas would look at him. “Honest. I’m sorry.”

“It wasn’t your decision to make,” Cas replied shortly.

“I know.”

They fell into a silence again. It wasn’t awkward this time so much as it was emotion-filled. Sam sat in his guilt. This conversation felt worse than when Dean had snapped at him. Dean had some fire in him, there was a spark of rage, while Cas just sounded defeated. 

“I know you’re pissed at me, but Cas, I’m sorry--”

“Stop apologizing. You were only doing what was right,” Cas muttered. 

Sam’s mouth snapped closed so quickly that his teeth clicked. Cas finally turned to look at Sam, and he didn’t look away. 

“I deserve this,” Cas explained, pushing himself up onto his elbow, wincing and rubbing at his stomach. When his face relaxed, he licked his lips, turned his eyes to the floor and continued, “I was being selfish, not telling Dean. Despite knowing my fate, I felt happiness. A true, human happiness because Dean and I finally came together, after all these years. I didn’t want to let it go, Sam. So,” Cas looked up at Sam, “I’m the one who is sorry. Initially I _was_ angry with you, yes. And then I was angry at you because you did what I should have done. Now I’m angry with myself; what I did -- no, what _I did not do_ was wrong.”

Sam’s heart plummeted into his stomach. “Cas, no. Come on, man.”

“Yes,” Cas said with a spark of defiance in his eye. “Yes, I deserve this. I deserve the anger and the rejection. I deserve to be alone. Dean was right, and you were right. I didn’t tell him the truth and I took away his choice. I allowed him to get invested, I was warned against it, and I _still_ let it happen because I’m selfish -- ow, ow. _Ow._ ”

Cas sat up abruptly, curling his hand under his round belly, his eyes squeezing shut. 

Sam jolted forward, getting far enough that he put a hand on Cas’ leg before Cas held up his other hand to stop him.

Sam froze, watching Cas hold his breath, his head tilting forward, loose locks of hair swaying in front of his face as it turned a bit red.

“Cas,” Sam breathed in a rush of air, “talk to me. What’s up?”

No answer was accompanied by a quick shake of Cas’ head, and then he released a whoosh of air between his lips.

“Nothing, it’s nothing,” Cas whispered, sounding a bit out of breath. His eyes opened and revealed blue eyes that were wet and pained looking.

Sam’s eyes widened further. “That didn’t look like nothing.”

Cas winced as he peered up at Sam, a normal colour returning to his face. “It happens sometimes, it’s fine.”

“ _What_ happens sometimes?” 

Cas looked guilty. He looked away and answered to the Netflix logo, “Just some discomfort.”

Running a hand through his hair, Sam lowered himself down onto the couch beside Cas. He left his hand on his leg. 

“Dude, indigestion is discomfort. That,” Sam pointed at Cas’ stomach, “looked a lot worse than discomfort. Are you in pain?”

Cas shrugged with one shoulder, raising a hand to his clammy forehead. “Not anymore.”

Ridiculously, Sam had the impulse to grab Cas’ chin and force him to make eye contact, but he shook off the compulsion and squeezed his leg through the blanket. 

“How long has this been happening?”

“A few days,” Cas admitted, pulling the blanket up over his belly.

Sam’s stomach gave a little squeeze and his brows jumped up further on his forehead. “You’ve been feeling pain for few days?” 

“Not for the entire day,” Cas replied grumpily. “Just intermittently. It’s just some cramping, Sam. Some squeezing sensations. I’ve read it’s normal. It doesn’t last very long every time.”

The term ‘Braxton Hicks’ flashed across Sam’s mind, recalling the article he read in the doctor’s office while they waited for Cas to be seen.

“How long do they last?”

Cas did meet his eye again, this time looking vulnerable and guilty again. “Thirty seconds. Perhaps a minute sometimes.”

Glancing down at where he knew a baby was floating around, Sam frowned and asked with concern, “How often?”

Cas continued to look guilting, and he began rubbing the bottom of his belly softly. “Every few hours.”

Sam groaned, “Cas. You should have told us.”

“It’s not a big deal!” Cas said loudly, then glanced at the door and lowered his voice, “It hasn’t been painful until today. It—It’s normal. I’m fine.”

With a pang of empathy, Sam’s face softened, and he lifted his hand from Cas’ leg to rest on his shoulder, especially when he noticed Cas begin to look guilty again. Sam felt tired of upsetting Cas and letting him down. 

Sam smiled. “Sorry, Cas. You know what, you know what’s going on better than me. Just promise you’ll ask for help if you need it? Tell me or Dean if something is wrong.”

“Nothing is wrong,” Cas said quickly. Too quickly. Sam forced his lips to keep smiling though he was tempted to let his face twisted into an expression of disbelief. Cas seemed to sense it because he pushed on, repeating, “Nothing is wrong. It’s just a tightening and some pressure, the pain is manageable, it’s minimal.”

Sam’s face betrayed him, and his smile faltered, his eyes narrowing. “Cas…”

“This is why I haven’t told you,” Cas bitched, brushing hair behind his ear irritably. “Other than the fact that no one is talking to each other, I knew you’d overreact.”

“Okay,” Sam conceded raising his hands in the air. “Okay, you know what’s best. Just _ask_ for help if you need it. I’m your friend. I—I know I fucked up recently but I’m here if you need anything.”

“Sure,” Cas nodded, sounding unconvinced. Sam was tempted to argue but he knew Cas wasn’t really feeling himself and if he was in pain or sick, he was especially not himself. 

They sat awkwardly, not speaking. Sam felt like he hadn’t said anything right. He wished he had the right words to tell Cas how sorry he was.

“I’m sorry I told Dean.”

“Yes, you said that already,” Cas sighed.

Sam shrugged, staring up at the Netflix logo now too. “Right.”

Again, they were quiet. This time, Cas spoke first.

“I’m scared, Sam,” Cas breathed, his eyelashes fluttering for a second when Sam turned his head sharply, surprised by the admission. Blue eyes met hazel, unsure, ashamed. “I’m scared of dying. But knowing that you and Dean will have more family, and that someone will be happy for the existence of this nephilim, even if it wasn’t planned, it makes me feel less scared.”

“That’s really good, Cas,” Sam said, and fuck, his voice was thick and wavering. Sam sniffed sharply, itching under his eye, hoping Cas didn’t see the tear that had slipped out for a second. “For the record, we’re all scared too. I—I told Dean because I wanted him to be prepared, for him to be less scared.”

“I know,” Cas said, nodding, his own eyes wet and his nose red.

“But he’ll be broken, Cas,” Sam whispered. Then, placing a hand over Cas’, gripping his thin fingers in his big hand, not caring if it was weird or not, he added in a hitched breath, “I will too, you know. I’ll be broken too. I’ll miss you, Cas.”

Cas didn’t look angry anymore. He just looked upset. Cas nodded, a tear slipping down the side of his face. In a whisper, he replied quietly, his voice tight, “I’ll miss you too, Sam.”

They leaned toward each other, Cas’ arms coming up around Sam’s neck, while Sam curled his arms around Cas ribs. They hugged tightly, sniffing into each other’s shoulders.

Cas pulled away first and he cleared his throat. He looked embarrassed. Sam recalled their hug from the OB-GYN’s office and remembered how embarrassed and annoyed Cas had been with his hormones and his tears.

“Can you go now?” Cas said, clearing his throat again and avoiding Sam’s eye. “I’m tired.”

Despite himself, while anyone else would consider that offensive, Sam was familiar with Cas’ bluntness, so he laughed. 

“Sure.” 

Sam rose to his feet and began to cross the room when he froze, turning back to Cas. Cas fixed him with rising, questioning eyebrows.

“What?” Cas asked as he lay back down and tugged the blanket over his stomach.

Sam pointed to the couch. “Have you been sleeping in here?” 

Cas sighed and grabbed his phone from the table, tapping at it while he replied to Sam, “Yes.”

Sam raised his hands at his sides, staring at Cas in anticipation, “...and _why_ are you sleeping in here? On the couch? That can’t be comfortable.”

“I’m already perpetually uncomfortable,” Castiel replied, his face lit in red and blue as he navigated through whatever he was doing on his phone. When ‘The Office’ loaded on the screen, he put his phone back on the coffee table and shuffled onto his side, shifting his face on the pillow. “I have trouble sleeping alone. The television helps.”

Sam glanced at the TV, watching Michael Scott’s stupid grinning face wink at the camera. “You like The Office?”

Cas shrugged one shoulder, watching the show boredly. “I know it’s meant to be funny, but I don’t get many of the jokes. That being said, I enjoy Pam and Jim’s friendship. It’s easy and they’re kind to each other. Michael tries his best to be good, though he often fails. I… Anyway, their voices are calming, they help me sleep.”

“Right. Goodnight, Cas.”

Sam turned away and left the room, feeling strangely sad. He made it back to his room, feeling a weird gnawing in his stomach. The covers were pulled back to allow him space to slide underneath, but on an impulse, Sam yanked them off the bed and threw them over his shoulders. He grabbed a pillow and headed out of his room.

After making a pit stop in the kitchen, Sam ducked under the stair and re-entered the TV room. Cas jumped a bit, seemingly not expecting another visit, and pushed himself up onto his elbow.

“Sam! What are you doing back? You should be sleeping.”

“That’s what I came here to do,” Sam replied simply, crossing in front of the TV and throwing his sheets down onto the couch adjacent to Cas. He threw his pillow down and flopped down onto the couch. It was too small for him, but he tucked his legs in and threw the covers over them.

“Mind if I sleep here?” Sam asked, tilting his head up on the pillow to look at Cas, whose pillow was close to Sam’s.

Cas stared at him, confused. “Why would you sleep here?”

Sam shrugged, turning his head back down so that he was watching Stanley roll his eye at Dwight and Jim’s shenanigans. “I wanna watch The Office too. I promise, you won’t even know I’m here.”

Cas was quiet. Sam didn’t hear him move for almost a minute, then he heard his covers shift and a small sigh. 

“Do you want me to start the episode from the beginning?” Cas mumbled.

Sam grinned at the screen.

“Yeah. Thanks, man.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :O OH BOY.
> 
> Leave me a comment and let me know your thoughts.


	11. The Stages of Grief Pt. 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry I didn't update last night. My old ass fell asleep at like 10:30.
> 
> To make up for it, I'm going to be posting two chapters today. ;) 
> 
> This chapter is un-beta'd, all mistakes are mine.

Talking to Dean proved harder than talking to Cas.

Because while Cas was hard to read and hormonally grumpy, at least he was open to discussion and didn’t storm out every time Sam attempted to talk to him. Dean, on the other hand, was always gone. He left early and came in late. 

To make efforts more difficult, this night he came in not only late, but very drunk -- with slurring in his voice and blood drying on his knuckles.

Sam walked from Cas’ bedroom -- his actual bedroom, which had taken some convincing for Cas to inhabit again -- to the kitchen to fetch Tylenol and wrap some ice in a towel. 

Cas’ low grade-fever was turning into a fever in general, and those pains he was having were getting worse. Sam had, for a few hours there, thought Cas was in labour for sure, but other than ‘discomfort’ that seemed suspiciously like contractions, nothing else fit the bill. No ‘show’ (which, ew, looked gross when Sam googled it), no stomach issues, no random blood, and no back pain other than the kind Cas already had. No water had broken, there was no baby dropping… nothing. Just pain that got worse and occurred randomly, if not more frequently as the days passed.

Sam had been there for him for days now, making sure he was hydrated and fed. Cas insisted on not staying in bed, wadding around like he had important shit to do, but he got tired easily and more than once Sam had to force him to sit before he burst into tears of exhaustion.

Tonight, Sam knew Dean was home because every light from the entrance of the bunker to the kitchen were on. Dean seemed to be allergic to turning off the lights behind him, and when he was drunk it was even worse.

“Where have you been?” Sam asked irately as he walked into the kitchen and saw Dean rummaging around in the fridge, leaning heavily on the door. “It’s nearly three in the morning.”

“Fuck off, Sam,” Dean replied briskly, cracking open a can of beer from the fridge. He turned briefly to eye Sam before he ducked back down into the fridge, angrily pulling out ingredients with one hand and tossing them onto the counter with vigor. “Mind your own fucking business, how ‘bout that?”

The guilt of hiding Cas’ secret from Dean, the guilt of ruining Dean’s happiness had plagued Sam for a week now, and when Dean ignored him, Sam hadn’t fought back because of it, because he figured he’d deserved it. But Sam was sick of being ignored, he was tired of looking at Cas and seeing him look like he’d collapsed into himself, like he couldn’t summon the energy to pretend to be okay.

Sam crossed the room and shut the door to the fridge, which Dean left open as he carted his ingredients (a sandwich… at three o’clock in the morning? Really?) to the table. Scowling at the back of his brother’s head, Sam followed him, dropping down onto the bench across from Dean.

Dean glanced up at Sam and flicked his fingers at the doorway.

“What part of ‘fuck off’ do you not understand?” Dean asked snidely. “Don’t need the company.”

“Tough,” Sam replied curtly. “I live here too.”

Dean threw down the butter knife he was about to put into the mayo jar onto the table. It was then that Sam noticed Dean’s knuckles were broken and bloody. He also noticed the sharp stench of hard alcohol and a clammy sheen to Dean’s skin.

Dean was shaking his head at him. “You really think you’re in a good position to talk to me like that? Sam, are you--”

“What happened to your hand?” Sam asked, reaching across the table to grasp his brother’s wrist, though that didn’t last long, because Dean jerked it away almost immediately.

“Can you not man-handle me?” Dean groused. “S’bad enough that you’re even hanging around. I just wanna drink this beer, eat, and then go to bed. Can you just _go away_ \--”

Again, Sam interrupted him. The slurring in Dean’s voice was concerning, especially considering his car keys were on the counter beside Dean’s wallet. 

“Did you drive drunk?” Sam asked incredulously, his eyebrows furrowing deeply, his eyes wide. “Are you nuts?”

“Fuck _off_ ,” Dean said again, his words dripping with frustration. Spitting, he pleaded angrily, “Seriously, just leave me alone.”

Sam’s fingers turned white as he gripped the edge of the table and he leaned in, shaking his head. In a harsh whisper, he burst out, “I’m sorry that I told you the truth, Dean. To be honest, if I knew you were gonna act all reckless like this, and disappear all day, and do what you did to Cas, I would’ve _never_ told you--”

As Sam spoke, Dean snorted into his beer when he took a large swig, but choked when Sam mentioned Cas. His eyes went dark and he slammed his beer down on the table. 

“What _I_ did to Cas?” Dean whispered harshly. ”What about what Cas did to _me_?” 

Sam barrelled on, ignoring him. His hand nearly trembled as he lifted it away from the table and pointed it at Dean to make his point. “What Cas did was wrong but you’re completely fucked if you think he isn't paying for it. Don’t you think _dying_ is punishment enough? You think you’re the only one suffering in this situation?” Sam was spitting a bit at this point, his frustrations with Dean pouring out of his mouth like righteous word vomit. “After he’s gone, at least you still get the kid, you know? But Cas is just gonna die and that’s _it_. He never gets to meet that kid, he doesn’t get to hold it, or look at it or, or _anything_ \--”

“Stop,” Dean hissed, his eyes staring hard at the top button of Sam’s shirt, his green eyes whirling with emotion. His jaw was clenching like he was enraged, but his eyes were wet and anguished.

Earlier, when preparing himself for this discussion, Sam had originally intended to speak calmly with Dean, but his anger at Dean’s reaction had overtaken him now and he continued on, “Cas doesn’t get to say goodbye or make peace with this, because how do you even make peace with a situation so fucked up, y’know? And your _selfish_ ass had to make this about just you. And, granted, I get it, Dean. I really do. I get it. He lied. He lied, but he didn’t lie to be a dick, he did it because he was scared, because he wanted to let _you_ be happy.”

“Shut _up_ ,” Dean growled through his teeth.

Ignoring him, Sam pressed a hand to his chest, “I _tried_ over and over to get him to tell you, and fuck, I got pissed too that he didn’t. But he didn’t tell you because he wanted you to have something to be happy about, he didn’t want to take that from you!”

The drunk flush on Dean’s face deepened and he seemed to sway a bit in his seat, his throat working. Sam thought maybe Dean might throw up, but Sam was on a roll now so he didn’t care. 

“Don’t pretend like you would have acted differently than he did if you were in his situation, okay?” Sam jammed his finger into the table again. “You’d be just as selfish and just as scared, because you’d be just as confused and just as lonely, so hop off the high horse!”

Sam realised he was kind of yelling now and he realized that Dean hadn’t said much at all. He just was looking progressively more torn between being angry and being sick.

“Aren’t you gonna say anything?” Sam asked aggressively, shrugging jerkily and raising his hands a bit off the table. 

Dean licked his lips slowly and then finally looked up at Sam, meeting his eyes. It took a lot of effort on Sam’s part not to recoil from the pain and accusation in Dean’s face.

“Do you think you can even begin to understand what I’m going through right now?” Dean asked, his voice eerily steady all of a sudden. “Do you seriously think this is easy for me? I opened up to you about Cas and your first instinct was to take it from me. I can’t stand to look at you.”

It was Sam’s turn to feel sick. He glanced down to see Dean’s hands shaking.

Dean swallowed loudly, and after licking his lips again, he said, his voice dangerously low, “It’s called self-preservation, Sam. I had to step away from Cas for _me,_ okay? Because I’m gonna have a kid, and if I’m going to be around, if I’m gonna be a good dad, I can’t do this with Cas. I have to shake off these feelings before my kid gets here.”

Sam wasn’t sure where Dean was going with this until the most revealing words dripped off Dean’s tongue like a thick, venomous sludge;

“I can’t be like Dad,” Dean breathed, his face red, and his voice thick with tears of fury. “I can’t watch the love of my life die, I can’t watch his life slip between my fingers, okay? I can’t -- I-I _won’t_ turn into Dad; all vengeful and broken. The-the only way to do that is to step away from Cas, to break it off before we fall too deep to c-crawl our way back up.”

The rage that had flooded through Sam’s veins came to a solid, halting stop as Dean’s voice got progressively tighter and thicker, and his face crumpled. Dean’s hands came up to his face and pressed over his nose and mouth, his eyes squeezing shut. 

As soon as Dean’s body curled forward a bit, Sam jumped to his feet and swept around the table. He slid onto the bench beside Dean and threw his arms around him in time for Dean to burst into tears, his shoulders shaking. 

“Hey, whoa, whoa. Okay... It’s okay, man,” Sam murmured, pulling Dean in, resting the side of his head against Sam’s chest, and rubbing at Dean’s arm quickly. It was an awkward position, but neither cared as Dean sniffed and tried to hold in his sobs, failing as some escaped past his lips. He inhaled sharply like he was trying to pull them back.

“I tried,” Dean breathed, his shoulders shuddering a few times. His voice was muffled as he talked into his hands. “I tried everything, Sam. I summoned angels, I w-went to a crossroads demon. I even t-tried to talk to Crowley.”

“Oh, Dean…”

Dean released another weep by accident, and he pressed his hands to his lips hard for a second before he swallowed a sob and whispered wretchedly, “I’ve been going to see a professor of theology a few towns over, ev-everyday. Every-fucking-day. H-He was supposed to be an expert on angel lore. He told me about t-these angels that were rumored to replenish grace for angels wounded in b-battle. Something…something he read about somewhere..”

Everyday. Dean had been going to see this guy _every day_. Sam’s heart ached horribly, recalling how pissed he’d been that Dean had ‘fucked off’ all day long. 

He’d just been trying to save Cas the entire time.

Dean choked down another sob and Sam felt his arm working under his hand, feeling Dean swiping at his face. 

“I summoned angels, I even found one who _didn’t_ want to kill Cas,” Dean chattered faintly. He shuddered in Sam’s arms. “I asked him where to find those angels, the grace healers--”

“What did the angel say?” Sam asked, partially hopeful, though he wasn’t disillusioned about the answer; Dean was too upset for it to be good news.

Dean’s shoulders gave a horribly heave and he whispered tightly, almost so thick that he couldn’t speak; “Nothing. _Nothing._ They’re dead. Been dead for hundreds of years. Wiped out during some war between Heaven and Hell.”

“I’m so sorry, Dean,” Sam said, his own voice thick now. Sorrowful, grieving tears prickled the corners of his eyes. “You…you shouldn’t have gone alone. I could have helped.”

“You’re not protected,” Dean explained roughly. “The nephilim… It protected me. Every time an angel or demon tried to attack me, they were blasted away. I-I have some kind of spell on me. I wasn’t scared. I was safe.”

Sam recalled the blasts of white light that had destroyed the angels at that crime scene several months back. He realised, in shock, that it made sense. The first angel had died when it tried to torture Dean, and the second had died when it tried to kill Cas.

Again, Sam gave Dean a squeeze and whispered, “I’m sorry that you couldn’t find anything. We all tried. Cas and I have been trying to find something for months…”

“Cas is going to die,” Dean breathed, and his entire body seemed to slump. His voice became small, his throat seeming to close. With a sniffle and a long, shuddered breath of despair, Dean whispered, “I can’t save him.”

Sam disentangled himself from his brother and put a steady hand on the top of Dean’s shoulders to still his swaying. He grabbed a napkin from the table, shoving it into Dean’s hands. As Dean swiped clumsily at his face, Sam rose swiftly to his feet and went to fetch a glass of water. He returned with it and set it on the table in front of Dean.

“Drink,” Sam ordered. Wasted and crying would result in the world’s worst hangover. Ten minutes ago, Sam would have wished it on Dean, but now, understanding the drunkenness, Sam understood that Dean needed just as much care as Cas did.

Obediently, suddenly devoid of fight or fury, Dean sipped from the glass, still a bit out of breath from his outburst. He got a few swallows in before his face tinged with a bit of green and he set it down, licking at his lips which had paled quickly.

Sam settled back down in front of him, though ready to jump into action if Dean keeled over. 

Looking lost, Dean blinked at Sam, his chin and lips trembling gently. “What do I do now, Sam? What do I do?”

Sam smiled sadly. His shoulders jerked up a bit in a small shrug. 

“Just because you can’t save his life, doesn’t mean you can’t save him,” Sam explained gently, his head tilting a bit. “You’re not Dad. You’re never going to be Dad. I know because you raised me. I didn’t give you ‘Happy Father’s Day’ cards every year until I was fourteen just to be a troll.”

Dean, to Sam’s relief, laughed into his napkin as he wiped at his face again. More tears leaked out of the corner of his eyes, but at least he was smiling.

Sam laughed a bit too, and then said with every ounce of sincerity inside of him, “You’re gonna be such a good dad, Dean. I promise. You don’t have to deny yourself Cas to be a good dad. I think that kid would grow up happier knowing that his parents had been in love until the end. Not like our dad… Dad was vengeful because of guilt. Because I don’t think he ever really appreciated mom while she was around. Isn’t that what you told me one time?”

“Maybe,” Dean exhaled quietly, more tears falling over his cheeks, though he wasn’t sobbing anymore. “I might have said that, but what do I know?”

Maybe. ‘Maybe’ was something. ‘Maybe’ was better than fury and bull-headedness. Sam would chip away at Dean again tomorrow. In the meantime, he needed to get Dean to bed. Or to a toilet, if the colour in Dean’s lips was any indication.

“Drink your water,” Sam instructed, pointing to the glass.

Dean did as he was told, his hand shaking a bit, the napkin crumpled into a tight wad in his hand, resting now on the table. When the glass clicked back down onto the wooden surface, Dean swayed a bit. He shut his eyes and whispered, “Sammy?”

Sam sat up straight, ready. “Yeah?”

“Can you help me to bed?” Dean asked, swallowing and going pale. His voice came out small.

“Should I grab a bucket too?”

Dean nodded, reaching up and tugging at the collar of his shirt, flapping it a bit like he was overheating.

Sam’s lip twitched up a bit. He rose to his feet and took Dean by the elbow, slinging it over his shoulder.

“Sure. Anything you need, jerk.”

Through worrisome swallowing, Dean murmured, “Thanks, bitch.”

***

At 2:00pm, Sam looked at his watch. He’d achieved a lot today so far; he’d gone for a run, made Cas and himself some breakfast, did some laundry, and convinced Cas to take some Tylenol and have a nap before their research session. 

He’d done all that and still, Dean was in bed. It didn’t really come as much of a surprise. He’d managed to haul Dean about halfway to his bedroom last night before Dean had started breathing shallowly and whispering something about being sick. After stocking the bedside table with ibuprofen and Gatorade, Sam had sat with him on his bed until Dean dozed off, and until he was convinced that the projectile vomiting had stopped.

Sam had no realistic expectations that Dean was going to remember anything from last night, which was a shame because he thought he’d made some headway with the Cas thing. Regardless, he’d try again, especially because drunk-Dean had been very open and vulnerable. It meant he knew he could crack him, he just had to chip away at Dean’s hard exterior, he just had to make him see reason, and convince Dean to take what he wanted - even if it was just for a little while, even if just for a couple of months.

As for Cas, he was getting sicker and those weird pains were getting worse and more frequent. He moved slowly, and actually wore the women’s clothing now because they were thinner and lighter; they were the only thing he could wear to be even moderately comfortable (he’d taken a liking to wearing baggy button-ups and black tights.) His face was constantly flushed and shining a bit. The fever sat dangerously on the precipice of being a problem, but he was managing to eat and drink just fine, so Sam couldn’t fight him too much about it. 

It was a small success when Sam convinced Cas to at least move their researching into the TV room, where Cas could be comfortable. Or rather, perhaps Sam hadn’t so much _convinced_ Cas as much as he’d nagged him to all hell. It was only after the seventh time Sam had pointed out how uncomfortable the library chairs were that Cas had growled his surrender and got up to go to the TV room.

Their set up was pretty sweet, Sam had to admit. The coffee table was a good home for all their books and notes, and Cas did seem less shifty and less uncomfortable as he sat cross-legged on the couch, a book balanced on his stomach and a snack in his free hand. Sam was sprawled out on the other armchair, his legs thrown over the sides, his laptop resting on his thighs.

He was tapping away at the keyboard when Dean came into the room quietly.

Sam glanced quickly at Cas. He noticed Cas’ eyes still on the page and the chewing slowed to a stop. 

Sam glanced quickly at Dean, smiling, but Dean wasn’t looking at Sam. He was staring at Cas. Dean crossed the room and stopped in front of Cas, who didn’t look up. 

Dean set a glass of water down on the coffee table. The glass made a clicking noise as it rested on the hard, polished wood.

Cas’ eyes flickered up from his book to the water and didn’t budge when Dean walked away, maneuvering around the back of the couch. The way Cas’ throat worked made Sam feel like he was having trouble swallowing. 

Then, quietly; “Thank you.”

Though he initially seemed to be heading towards the bookshelf in the back corner of the room, Dean stopped behind the couch, his stern face melting. His eyes glistened a bit for a second as he seemed to contemplate something, then he turned towards Cas.

Dean leaned over the back of the couch and slid his arms around Cas’ shoulders, burying his face in Cas’ neck. He squeezed him tightly. Cas looked like he was trying to remain calm, but his cheeks and nose became red immediately and his mouth pressed into a trembling, thin line. 

No one in the room moved or made a sound for a suspended moment, then Cas’ hands came up and gripped Dean’s forearms. He turned his face ever so slightly towards Dean, who responded by burying his face deeper in Cas’ wild hair, eyes squeezed shut.

Sam should’ve looked away. What he was seeing, it was private. He found himself staring though, unable to rip his eyes away from the tender moment. He was overwhelmed. He’d never seen Dean _with_ anyone in this capacity and it was just...so _touching_. 

Sam felt his eyes get a bit wet. 

But it _was_ private. So he forced himself to look away and he got up, clearing his throat. “I’m gonna grab a drink,” he announced, crossing the room in quick, long strides. 

As he reached the door and looked back, mouth opening to ask them if they wanted anything, the words died on his lips. Dean had his hand on Cas’ jaw, turning his face. They had their eyes closed, their lips locked together, faces moving gently. The view was obscured a bit by Cas’ waves, but he got the idea of what was going on as he heard soft, wet noises of kissing.

He wasn’t grossed out or embarrassed. Rather, Sam turned away, smiling, and let them have their moment. Warmth unfurled inside him and spread through him in tingles of relief.

As he reached the kitchen, grabbed a drink, and began to return to the TV room, he paused. He wasn’t needed back there. The research could wait. He would let them have that moment together, and as many more moments as they needed today, and tomorrow, and as many days as Cas had left. 

He could find something else to do today.

After all, Sam thought with a pang of regret, Dean and Cas’ moments together were numbered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Leave me those sweet, sweet comments.
> 
> Next chapter following very soon!


	12. Her Room

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There you go, the second chapter of the day. :)
> 
> This one is unbeta'd, all mistakes are mine.

The sound of Dean’s boots clunking down the steps into the kitchen jerked Sam out of his thought process. He looked up, tucking a fallen strand of hair behind his ear, away from his face.

“What’s up?” Sam asked, taking in the stiff nature of Dean’s shoulders and the clenched, tight look of his jaw.

Dean dropped down onto the bench across from Sam and rested his elbow on the table. He ran a finger over his lips, looking exhausted, thoughtful, and concerned all at the same time.

“You okay?” Sam pried, frowning.

Dean’s fingers lifted from his lips and started rubbing at his forehead. With a short, stuttered shrug of his shoulders, Dean admitted, “I’m worried about Cas. I don’t wanna come off as this over-protective psycho-baby-daddy, but he’s freaking me out with the fever and the sleeping all day. He hasn’t left his room except to shower and pee for like, an entire day. Every time I go in there, he’s out cold.”

Sam turned his laptop, showing Dean a blog article about fever during pregnancy. He quirked his lip at Dean in an attempt to flash him a comforting, amused smile. His finger curled over the back of the screen and tapped at the glass.

“It’s normal. Sometimes pregnant girls get sick,” Sam comforted gently. “It’s all right as long as Cas can eat and drink. Just go easy on the Tylenol and keep checkin’ in on him.”

“Right,” Dean murmured, seeming unconvinced. He used his free hand to tap on the down arrow, his face illuminated as his eyes quickly scanned the screen. “I’m just… It’s just weird, right? He was fine, he seemed okay only a few days ago. Then suddenly, he’s sick and spends all his day locked away.”

With a flutter of realization in his heart, Sam made an ‘o’ shape with his mouth and nodded. Then he laughed a bit, his smile crooked. “I _get_ it.”

Dean’s eyes flickered up in Sam’s general direction, and his cheeks coloured a bit, but he didn’t confirm or deny anything. The tapping on the keyboard had stopped.

Sam tilted his head. “You think he’s still mad at you.”

The laptop was closed with a sharp click, and Dean’s face looked suddenly very tired without the light shining on it. He shrugged.

“He doesn’t… He doesn’t sleep in my room anymore.”

It was tempting to tease Dean for opening up and being vulnerable because the natural reaction between the two of them, when it came to their love lives, was to tease. But Sam held back, knowing the circumstances were unique and rather sensitive.

“You kinda broke up with him when he was seven months pregnant with your kid, and like, right after you found out he was dying. Wouldn’t you be kinda pissed too?”

Dean traced the outline of the Apple logo on the back of Sam’s laptop and nodded. Again, he didn’t say anything.

“But,” Sam conceded, “I don’t honestly believe he’s _pissed_ -pissed at you. I just kinda get the feeling Cas is just hesitant to, um, you know, let you in? Could be how you reacted. Could be something to do with not wanting to get too invested, especially because you and I both gave him shit about it.”

Dean’s fingernail broke against the laptop and he sighed, pulling his hand closer to him, playing with the nail. He shrugged and Sam expected him to deflect, to use ‘chick flick’ or ‘touchy feely’ in his next sentence, but to his surprise, Dean just nodded.

“It was wrong of us to do that. Cas didn’t do it to be a dick. He just…didn’t want to die alone. What we have -- had -- have… It’s, uh...” He trailed off. Dean finally looked up and his fatigued, sad eyes made contact with Sam’s. “I get it. I get why he let me get invested.”

Sam’s mouth pursed into a crooked pout and he stared at his brother in earnest. “Have you tried apologizing?”

“Yeah,” Dean nodded, tearing his gaze away, green eyes looking but not seeing his fingers as they fiddled again. “It was probably no good though. Cas and me, we’re not good at talking about our feelings.”

“You probably should, soon,” Sam said, accidentally adding ‘soon’. He winced.

Dean looked up at him wearily, the bags under his eyes deep. “‘Cause he’s gonna die, right?”

The gulp of Sam’s throat was loud in the heavy silence. He considered denying it, but then he nodded. “Yeah. ‘cause he doesn’t have that much time -- uh, hi, Cas.”

The scent of shampoo and body wash wafted into the kitchen as Cas walked into the space. His skin looked flushed and fresh, his hair thrown over one shoulder, damp and towel-dried. Even Sam, who had tried to stay neutral to Cas’ female body for the last six month-ish, thought Cas looked weirdly pretty in Dean’s worn Black Sabbath t-shirt, black tights, and blue plaid. The t-shirt was stretched over his big tummy and swollen chest, but they still had a comfy charm to them, still managing to look kinda big on Cas, who’d shrunk during his bodily change. The plaid button-up that hung off his shoulders billowed behind him like a cape.

“Hi,” Cas replied, approaching the table with a strange shyness.

“How’re you feeling?” Sam asked, flashing Cas a little toothy smile. 

Cas smiled back, twisting the damp ends of his hair around his finger, his other hand resting on top of his stomach. “Better. I took a cold shower and feel significantly less awful.”

“You look better,” Sam offered kindly. “Hungry?”

Cas shook his head and he stepped towards Sam, moving to sit on his side of the table.

Dean was gazing at Cas. Sam realised that Dean had been gazing at Cas the entire time, hoping for eye contact. When Cas moved to sit with Sam, Dean’s hand jerked out and he took Cas’ fingers in his own, holding his hand in a visibly gently manner. Sam looked down at the hands, noticing Dean squeeze softly and tug Cas back.

Cas went willingly, after looking a bit alarmed. He slid onto the bench as Dean made room and well, goddamn, they were cute. Dean lifted Cas’ hand up, cupped it in both hands, and pressed a kiss to the knuckles there. Then he looked away, the joined hands disappearing onto the bench between them. While Dean preoccupied himself with opening Sam’s laptop, Cas was staring at Dean, his face looking torn between happy and sad. It was a strange mix that looked vaguely familiar on Cas’ features.

The article about pregnant women and fevers must have still been up on the screen, because when Cas’ eyes flicked over to it, his face looked panicked, then resigned. He looked up at Sam over the laptop, then sighed.

“Dean, the fever won’t stop,” Cas said grimly.

With a blink, both Winchesters turned to stare at Cas, who only had eyes for Dean.

Dean’s brows flickered down into a frown. “What?”

“The fever,” Cas explained, “is part of this. It’s grace, I think. As the nephilim reaches full gestation, the grace within it will mature as well. I am, essentially, carrying around the grace of a mature angel. That’s the burning, that’s the heat. I suspect it’ll only get worse the closer we get to birth.”

Sam’s jaw dropped along with Dean’s. This was new information to him too, which was why Castiel threw Sam an apologetic look, on top of surveying Dean with regret.

“It will burn me alive, Dean. It’ll be this that kills me in the end. This, and the pain of nephilim birth. Everything about this will strain this human vessel. It’s simply not equipped to deal with the nephilim.”

“And the pain?” Sam added, his voice hoarse for some reason. “Those weird pains you’re having?”

Dean looked broken again, staring down at Cas’ stomach through glistening eyes, his mouth pressed into a pale, thin line. He looked stricken. Cas noticed too because his voice softened further, sounding unhappy. 

“The pain… It is my human body trying to prepare for birth. It’s trying. But no amount of trying will help,” Cas explained, looking over at Sam now too with a dry smile on his lips that didn’t meet his eye. “I wish I could tell it that I appreciate the effort, but I really wish it wouldn’t bother.”

“How long until it comes?” Dean asked, his voice tight. His eyes were still gazing at the baby bump that brushed the edge of the table as Cas’ breathed.

“Well, um...” Cas looked unsure.

Sam counted on his fingers, then said, “You’re, what, like seven months in? Doesn’t that give you like a month and a half or more?”

Cas stared at Sam for too long. Sam noticed the fevered sheen was slowly returning to his skin and his eyes were beginning to look glassy. The cooldown from the shower hadn’t lasted long.

“What…What can I do to make you comfortable?” Dean asked, blinking, visibly trying to stow his pain. He cleared his throat, looking at Cas in the eye now.

“I don’t know,” Cas admitted.

“There’s got to be something,” Dean encouraged, his tone taking on a playful tone. It fell a bit flat, but Cas nor Sam pointed anything out. “Anything we can do to make things easier for you? What do you need to be happy until shit hits the fan? Is there, like, something you wanna do on Earth while you still have time? You wanna go to Vegas, ride a roller coaster? No, you can’t ride a coaster, I take it back. But, whatever, you name it. I heard they made this cool new pastry in Canada called a cronut - it’s a croissant and a donut. I can try to make it--”

Sam found himself smiling, and Cas seemed to feel similarly because he huffed out a small laugh and shook his head.

“I don’t need a cronut, Dean. All that would make me happy would be to finish my time on this earth by spending it with you,” Cas replied honestly. He glanced at Sam. “With both of you.”

 

“Sure, Cas,” Sam laughed, knowing perfectly well that Cas was being honest, but he wanted to spend a different kind of time with Dean. “We can do whatever you want. Is there anything in particular?”

“I want to finish The Office,” Cas admitted, smiling a bit. The three of them laughed at that. “I would like to find out if Jim and Pam get together.”

Dean shook his head, a genuine small smile creeping onto his lips. 

Cas looked between them and said more seriously, “Also, I want for my daughter to have a room here. And…I want to help create it for her.”

Sam blinked, jerking his head back in shock. Dean didn’t have a reaction, he just kept staring at Cas, the smile still present on his lips but his eyes wet and heartbroken.

“Her?” Sam asked, looking between Dean and Cas. An exciting feeling of nervousness buzzed in his stomach. “You know your baby is a her? How do you know that?” Sam leaned in to Cas, his face twisting in confusing as he glanced down at the baby bump. “Do you like, feel it or something?”

Dean laughed half-heartedly, his glistening eyes looking over at Sam. His voice was a bit thick, but he was making a clear effort to sound casual. “Sorry, Sam. But a few weeks back, we snuck back to the doctor’s office without you - a different one because we kinda left a memorable impression on the last doc and her patients. We, um, got another ultrasound.”

“Do you wish to see it?” Cas asked, when Sam’s mouth gaped at his brother. He nodded and Cas struggled to his feet, sliding off the bench, with Dean lending one supportive hand on his back, and another supportive hand still curled around his fingers.

When Cas disappeared, Sam turned to Dean, who was suddenly tapping away at Sam’s laptop, looking consumed and determined.

“Dude,” Sam whispered, leaning on the table, his forearms crossed, “you’re…you’re gonna have a daughter.”

“Don’t get me started,” Dean growled, pressing down on the enter key with vigor.

Sam frowned, “Did you… not want one?”

Dean snorted and glanced up at Sam. “I’m already worried about how boys are gonna treat her and she ain’t even born yet. I’m gonna need a shotgun.”

“We have like twelve shotguns.”

“Yeah,” Dean agreed, eyes scanning the computer screen in front of him. “I’m gonna need _more_ shotguns.”

Sam forced out a small laugh, unable to feel amused because of the lingering glisten of sadness in Dean’s eyes. The brothers fell into a silence that was only punctuated by Dean’s typing and tapping.

“What’re you doing?” Sam asked, after watching Dean bite at his nails distractedly.

Instead of answering, Dean tilted the laptop screen down and whispered, “Sammy, we gotta make my baby girl’s room really awesome. And we…we gotta make it perfect for Cas, okay?”

Sam’s chest ached and his heart squeezed. If they were different people, he would have reached over and taken Dean’s hand, tried to comfort him, because Dean looked shattered.

“Of course,” Sam whispered back, putting every bit of conviction into his voice. Dean looked up from the table and he nodded, sniffing.

“Thank you.”

Cas waddled back into the room, looking pained, one hand clenched into a fist, the other holding a picture face down against his stomach. He slid back onto the bench. While he’d gone to get it to show Sam, Cas paused to stare at it.

Not caring about an audience, Dean curled his arm around Cas’ neck and leaned his head against Cas’, smiling mournfully down at the little square picture.

Dean laughed. “She’s pretty cute, huh?” 

Visibly getting emotional, Cas nodded, humming tightly, “Mhmm.”

The picture shook in Cas’ hand as it was handed over to Sam, who look it, glanced down, and released a little involuntarily bark of laughter.

“Wow,” he breathed, staring down at an orange picture of a lumpy little baby. Somehow they’d managed to get a 3D picture. “Are 3D baby ultrasounds a thing?”

Dean shrugged and laughed breathily. “Yeah, I had no idea until they offered it. We had to pay extra, but it was just so cool, so we went for it.” Dean gestured to the picture with a lofty wag of his finger. “I know she looks all squishy and alien-like, but she’s got this pretty little face and her hands are just _there_ , and look at her feet, Sam! She’s got ten toes, and they’re pretty cute--”

Despite being obviously miserable about the situation with Cas, Dean’s proud daddy persona was creeping through. Sam could see the picture just fine and didn’t need Dean’s commentary, but that didn’t mean he was going to stop him. The subtle chuckle in Dean’s voice inspired a feeling of warmth that Sam hadn’t felt in a long time. 

He grinned up at Dean as he continued to describe the picture. Dean was actually being pretty accurate. For a picture of what otherwise looked like an alien, Sam’s niece looked pretty cute. Her little lips were turned up in the corner, like she was laughing at a joke in her head. Her tiny hands were cupped around her cheeks. All she needed was a sunflower crown to become a pre-birth equivalent of one of those newborn baby photoshoots. In the corner of the picture, her tiny little toes were flexed.

“Here, Cas,” Sam beamed, handing the picture back. 

Cas took it and immediately turned it around, gazing at his daughter. He hardly seemed present as his eyes swept over her features, drinking them in like he was frightened he’d forget what she looked like when he looked away.

***

Even though Cas on strict orders not to lift anything heavy or over-exert himself, he didn’t stay still the entire time that Sam and Dean carried boxes of furniture into Kevin’s old room. He cleaned almost obsessively, and carried tins of paint, blatantly ignoring Dean when he barked at him to let someone else take care of it. While Dean and Sam sat on the floor atop the protective plastic, assembling furniture, Cas painted. 

It took him days, and he worked well into the evening while Dean and Sam did research, made food, or ran errands. Cas ate his meals and watched episodes of The Office in the room while he painted. Dean and Sam tried to offer help with painting, but Cas refused.

On day three, while Cas was painting clouds and adding white highlights to the wings of bees, Sam was busy fastening the knobs onto the drawer handles and Dean was painting the baseboards, sipping on a beer and keeping an eye on Cas, whose breath was laboured today. He seemed to have a perpetual pinched look of discomfort on his face.

“You okay, Cas?” Dean asked cautiously, accidentally painting above the painter’s tape, his gaze otherwise occupied on Cas’ face.

“Yeah,” Cas lied, his voice tight.

“Are you lying?” Dean pried, raising his eyebrows. He stopped painting.

Cas nodded, suddenly unable to speak. He dropped his brush into the tray of paint, splashing himself and Dean with it. In attempts to snatch up the brush, Cas got white paint all over his hand, but neither of them commented on it because there was the more pressing matter of Cas experiencing another of those braxton hicks. 

Sam froze, staring at the two of them, unsure of what Dean would do. Dean had been around for a few of these fake contractions so far, but they seemed to freak him out. Sam couldn’t blame him. One day, the hicks would be real contractions, and that meant Cas was a goner.

Surprisingly, if Dean was unnerved, he didn’t show it this time. As Cas’ head bowed and he gripped the lower curve of his belly, Dean grabbed his other hand, giving it a squeeze, his free hand rubbing circles on Cas’ lower back.

“Hey,” Dean comforted in a low whisper. “You’re fine. You’re fine.”

As Cas exhaled slowly, humming, and raised his head. He nodded, his shoulders slouched and his muscles relaxed. Dean smiled and swept Cas’ hair back over his shoulder for him, sweeping a knuckle over Cas’ cheek as he pulled his hand back.

Well, shit. Sam looked away. That was sweet. It was really sweet. Damn his brother for being such a good dad already, for being nurturing and gentle. It was touching, but Sam couldn’t afford to be teary-eyed all the time.

“I ruined your shirt,” Cas groaned, pulling his hand away from his belly. Sam glanced over and saw a white handprint on the belly of the AC/DC shirt Dean always let Cas wear.

“Don’t worry about it,” Dean snorted. “That shirt is old, it’s why I gave you it for painting. Besides, I think you made it better. Check it out.”

Dean leaned across Cas and dipped his hand into the tray. With a little tricky angling, he pushed his hand onto the other side of Cas’ belly. When he peeled his hand away, a big white handprint was left behind.

Cas blinked up at him and Dean grinned, admiring his handiwork. “Was that cute or just dorky?”

“This shirt is completely ruined now,” Cas pointed out.

“It’s not ruined,” Dean laughed. “We made it better. We made it together.”

Sam heard Cas laugh, a little soft twinkle of a sound. “We did.”

“We should save it,” Dean suggested quietly. Sam heard the _pssssssh-tsssh_ of a brush painting side to side across the baseboards again. “We could leave it for her. You know, to have something of yours.”

Sam couldn’t help it. He looked over at them once more. Dean was painting again, his back curled a bit as he concentrated on dragging the edge of his brush tightly against the top of the baseboards. Cas was turned, watching Dean. 

He didn’t look so hot. After the fake contraction, he still looked a bit pale and his eyes were red. A small detail brush was held limply in his lap.

Sam and Dean both stopped what they were doing to try to help as Cas struggled to get up, using the plastic covered crib as leverage.

“I’m fine, I can do it,” Cas murmured, but did accept the help to his feet. He shook off the helping hands on his elbows. “I just…have to pee.”

As Cas left the room quickly, Dean and Sam exchanged looks, but Dean went back to his task, lowering himself back down to the floor.

“You’re doing really well, Dean,” Sam commented to Dean’s back. With Cas gone, there was an abrupt shift in the atmosphere. 

There was a silence except for the psssh-tssssh of the paint coated brush against wood, then Dean replied gruffly, “If you think so.”

Sam went back to the drawers without comment. His stomach hurt as he came to the understanding that Dean was putting on an act, that he was trying to be happy, trying to keep Cas from knowing his pain.

Sam didn’t know why he was surprised. This was just how Dean had always been.

This was how Dean had always been without Cas.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh snap, we're creeping closer and closer to the end of this fic... five more chapters and an epilogue! :O 
> 
> Leave me a comment and let me know what you thought of this chapter! :D


	13. The Fever

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am one day late AGAIN. As an apology, have two chapters. xD
> 
> Sorry, y'all. I've been such an old lady lately and have been falling asleep on the couch instead of being a young spring chicken who posts her shit on time.
> 
> Enjoy!

Castiel was getting worse. He felt tired. He felt spent. He felt too hot to function. He didn’t feel well at all, and yet, through the crippling fatigue, the contractions kept coming. 

They didn’t care that he didn’t have the energy, that he hadn’t slept, that he was already uncomfortable. They hit him in waves, once every few hours for a few days, then every hour. And now, today, he had been experiencing them two or three times an hour. 

The contractions were getting harder to hide.

Luckily, he had warning when they were about to hit; a building pressure in his abdomen and the jolting feeling of nausea like he was going to throw up immediately. While the sensations were anxiety-inducing and sudden, they were something to be thankful for. If he could feel them coming on, he could hide from Sam and Dean. He could press a hand over his mouth to stifle the whimpers that involuntarily pushed their way up his throat, and he ride out the radiating waves of burning heat through his body and sharp pain between his legs. The feeling of squeezing was itself utterly excruciating and was often the reason he slid down the wall of whatever random hallway he’d chosen as his hiding spot.

That day in the nursery, when Castiel had been painting the bees and Dean had painted his handprint onto Castiel’s shirt, he hadn’t really rushed off to pee. He had left the room because he felt a hard, painful kick and a pressure that was different than the pressure he’d felt before. He didn’t know what it was, but he certainly wasn’t going to find out in front of Dean and Sam. In fact, he’d hardly made it to the bathroom before the pressure was released with a hard snap like an elastic band, like a popping deep inside him, low between his legs. Then, there was gushing, and a long pour of water down his thighs. At first, with embarrassment, he thought he’d urinated, and felt waves of relief that he’d had the forethought to leave the room before the boys could see. But then, as the water poured and poured, and he felt like he’d lost a tremendous amount of weight, Castiel felt a cold shudder of panic down his spine. 

He knew what the water meant. He knew, from the books and the late night research on Sam’s tablet, what it meant to have his water break.

The end, it was coming.

Now, he taking shelter in his own room. His legs trembled as he picked himself up off the floor, where he’d spent the last thirty seconds kneeling and frozen, one hand digging into the material of his shirt under his belly, the other hand gripping his covers, his head bowed and face pinched in pain. He’d been unable to move or speak as his stomach had hardened and squeezed so tightly he was frightened he would crack in two. His back radiated with pain even after the contraction stopped. He could feel sweat dribbling down the side of his face and he searched on the bed, with a shaking hand, for the towel he’d left on the bed after his morning shower. Once he found it, he wiped his face and neck, and pushed damp hair back behind his ear.

He knew this wasn't going to be a regular labour process. This was a nephilim. There was no escaping this. Castiel was going to die in agonizing pain. There were no breathing techniques or birthing classes for being scorched inside out by the power of a super-charged human-angel hybrid. 

Dean and Sam...they were too good to him. Sam, especially, who had nothing invested in him or his nephilim, but was caring and spectacular anyway. When Dean hadn't been speaking to anyone and after Castiel had ceased being hot-headed and stubborn, Sam had been there with cool wet cloths, kind words, and those little white Tylenol pills that took the edge off the heat.

Castiel knew it was wrong to hide this and he knew he couldn't do it for much longer. They would obviously find out he was in early labour if the contractions continued to grow in strength and intensity as they had been over the past day or so. He had attempted to google how long labour took, but the answers were infuriatingly unhelpful. For some it took weeks, for others it took days. It felt different for every respondent. One woman reported that she thought she had been experiencing hunger pains, while another woman vomited through each contraction. Frankly, he thought the second woman was right on base, while the first should get herself checked out by a medical professional. 

He would tell Dean and Sam. He would. But only when he had to. He had only _just_ been forgiven by Dean...he only had a little bit more time with him. The tears and heartbreak would happen for Dean and Sam, but there was no need to start it prematurely. Dean, especially, didn't need to know until the last moment. Castiel desperately wanted to save him the anguish. And, selfishly, he wanted the affection to continue for as long as he lived, which wasn’t very long now.

Castiel was, admittedly, terrified. He felt stupid for it because what was there to be frightened of? Death wasn't permanent, he would simply move from one plane of existence to another. Granted, that other plane would likely be Hell, so perhaps the feeling was justified. Still, he felt fear deep in his belly of what the angels would do to him once they broke into Hell and got their hands on him, which they would find a way to do, eventually. One day Metatron would re-power the angels, once he’d figured out how to control them and have them bend to his will.

Castiel also felt fear for the pain of labour and death - it would not be quick. He would suffer...slowly. Human pain was infinitely worse than pain as an angel. Human pain was overwhelming and distracting. Gone were the days where physical pain was a mere annoyance to him that stood in the way of something bigger. Now when he felt pain, it was all he could focus on. He felt admiration for Sam and Dean for carrying their injuries so bravely. 

Perhaps, Castiel contemplated with shame, that was one of the reasons he was hiding the contractions from his friends. Perhaps there was a small part of him that was ashamed that he was so affected by pain, that he no longer dealt with it like that celestial warrior he used to be. His face burned in shame, wondering if they knew that he felt like that. 

And perhaps he was hiding the labour because if they knew it was happening, it was somehow made more real. Which was absurd, Castiel thought, annoyed with himself. It _was_ happening, no matter how much he denied it. It was real. 

The nephilim would be here soon and Castiel would never meet her. While she opened her eyes for the first time, or spoke her first words, or walked, or rolled onto her belly for the first time, he would be burning in Hell. 

Castiel blinked away tears, feeling humiliated for feeling grief for someone he'd never met. 

She'd never learn Enochian. She might never learn how to fly if there wasn’t anyone who could touch her wings, encourage her to make use of them.

Heartache trumped his humiliation because he felt a tear escape from the corner of his eye and slid over his cheek. 

His daughter would never fly. 

Staring at the ACDC shirt he and Dean had marked for their daughter, the shirt now carefully spread flat to dry on the floor, his chin trembling and tears sliding over the bridge of his nose, allowing himself a few minutes to grieve. In addition to white paint, there were little drips of yellow and black, and green smudges where Castiel’s belly had bumped against the wall as he painted. The green was lovely. It was like the most brilliant flecks in Dean’s eyes. 

Laying on the bed, his limbs shaking with exhaustion, Castiel pulled his hair away from his face and neck, twisting it up and away. He set his head on the pillow of his bed, sucking in uneven breathes as a heat wave coursed through him. His body felt so tired he wasn’t sure if he would be able to move again without rest. The heat made him feel sluggish. 

Placing a hand on his stomach, feeling his daughter wriggling inside him, Castiel wondered, with a heavy heart, what colour her wings would be.

His eyes slid shut.

***

Sam kept having the strangest dreams.

They started out bland, boring. He was making breakfast or going for a run or following a recipe for a new meal on youtube. He felt a strange sense of serenity. In the distance, somewhere else in the bunker, he heard Cas’s laughter - the deep chuckle of his male vessel, and heard Dean’s feet running over the old polished wood of the library, following little feet that pattered quickly in adorable little scuttles. A little girl screeched and giggled as she was chased, and Dean laughed breathlessly.

“Hey! No fair - you have wings!” he heard his brother say, every time.

And every time, a small child’s giggling tinkered in the air like a sparkle. Sam felt a breeze, it blew gently at his hair and it smelled soft. There was the beating of tiny wings behind him.

In every dream, Sam tried to turn around or look up, but he always woke up when he tried to see her, to follow the sound.

This night was no different. Sam woke up from a dream, still hearing the fluttering of wings as his eyes slid open. He turned his face on the pillow and peered at his alarm clock. It was three in the morning. 

Turning his face back to look up at the ceiling, Sam raised his hand to his face and rubbed his eyes, considering whether he would try to sleep again. A part of him wanted to return to his dreams where his brother laughed, Cas wasn’t dying, and bunker was alive with happiness and the pattering of mischievous little feet.

But he heard the deep hum of Dean’s voice and high-pitched noises that he struggled to recognize. For a moment, Sam sat up, staring out in the hallway, his ears straining to listen. His room was down the hall from the kitchen and around the corner from Dean and Cas’ room. From where he slept, staring out his open door, he could see that the kitchen light was on and there was movement inside. 

“I swear, if you’re having sex in there again,” Sam muttered, getting up to close the door. He made it to the doorway and was about slam it, but then he heard Dean talking. Full sentences, rushed. And he heard the high-pitched sounds of a girl crying.

Cas. Right.

Sam hesitated. Maybe they were fighting. He felt awkward hearing them fight, and was unsure whether to intervene. If it had been Dean and their _friend_ Cas fighting, Sam wouldn’t have worried about stepping in. Now, it was Dean and his romantic partner fighting. It was a mom and dad fighting… A couple. Sam didn’t have a place in that private interaction.

At the same time, Cas wasn’t in a position to be stressed out right now, and they’d all suffered so much drama these past few days… Maybe he’d just go check it out. He’d leave if it wasn’t his business.

Even though he was wearing a t-shirt and PJ pants, he grabbed his robe from behind the door and threw it over his shoulders to block the chill that took over the bunker at night. 

It was evident immediately, as Sam stepped into the kitchen, that they were not fighting.

His heart jumped. Sam’s feet picked up their pace as he swept down the stairs, and crossed the kitchen. He stopped beside Dean, who kneeled in front of Cas at the end of the dinner table.

“What’s going on?” Sam asked in hushed tones as Dean looked up at him, relieved. 

Cas was sobbing pitifully, his body drenched in sweat, his eyes glassy and pupils blown wide. He was shaking and his shoulders jerked as his chest hitched, hiccups interrupting little bouts of weeping. Cas kept staring across the kitchen. He hadn’t reacted to Sam’s arrival at all and he wasn’t even looking at Dean. It was like he didn’t know they were there.

“I’m so fucking glad you’re here,” Dean admitted in a rush. Sam leaned on the table, his eyes wide as he stared at Cas. 

“What...what’s happening?” Sam rephrased. He reached out and rested his fingers on Cas’ shoulder, trying to get his attention. Cas didn’t react, he just inhaled sharply and released a shuddered breath through a little part in his lips, fresh tears pouring down his face, mingling with beads of sweat.

Dean had a bowl of ice and water on the floor between them. He was dipping a sponge in it and running the cold water over Cas’ arms and legs.

“I-I woke up and Cas wasn’t in bed,” Dean began explaining, his face pale and his eyes a bit wide. Dean looked _stressed_. He licked his lips and blinked quickly. “He usually gets up a billion times at night, but the bed was drenched and he was gone for too long. I got up to check on him and couldn’t find ‘im anywhere. But then I-I checked the nursery and he was in there, just pacing and crying, and I thought he was having a meltdown, but I think it’s the fever, Sam.” Dean ran the sponge over Cas’ cheeks and forehead. Cas didn’t react. “He’s delirious. He keeps talking to himself, or…I dunno, _someone_. I did a sweep of the nursery with an EMF meter, but there’s nothing.”

“Did you give him anything?” Sam’s hand slipped off Cas’ arm and he crossed the kitchen, grabbing a metal bowl from a rack. He, too, created an ice bath and threw a clean sponge in. “Tylenol?”

“Yeah,” Dean breathed, wringing out the sponge and dipping it back in. The water sloshed against the side of the bowl and the ice tinkled against the metal. “I’m waiting for it to kick in. I-I have no idea what to do. His temperature is so fucking high but he’d warned us that was normal. He said this would happen, that he’d overheat. I don’t know what to do. I didn’t expect this.”

“You’re doing the best you can.” Sam retraced his steps and filled a glass with ice water, bringing it back to the table. A straw swayed around the rim of the glass.

Cas wept quietly, the sounds lessening as Dean ran the icy sponge under his jaw, against his pulse point. Cas’ clothing was wet around the collar but he didn’t seem to notice or care. Between sobs, Cas was whispering to himself in Enochian.

Dean’s voice was tight. “He’s not listening, he’s just rambling.”

“Cas? Cas, hey,” Sam murmured, leaning over Dean, patting the girl’s face, trying to get Cas to focus. There wasn’t an overt reaction, but Cas’ lashes did flutter a bit. Sam chose to carry on, speaking gently, “Hey, buddy. Can you drink for me?”

Dean whispered thanks when Sam ran the tip of the straw over Cas’ lips, actually managing to get him to drink a bit, before Cas pulled away from the water and sniffed wetly, running a shaking hand over his lips.

“She’ll never know. She won’t know how. Someone must teach her. I’ll miss you, I’ll miss you,” Cas whispered, his throat tight, his voice getting high as his eyes welled up with a fresh wave of tears. “Look at the stars, we put them in the sky for you.”

Sam and Dean exchanged looks as Sam settled behind Cas, straddling the bench. He set his own water bowl on the table and extended a hand to Dean, flexing his fingers a few times into a fist shape as if to say ‘gimme’. 

“Hair-band?” Sam asked. 

Dean nodded and held up his wrist. Sam tugged a couple of the stretchy black elastics off of Dean’s wrist and gathered Cas’ damp hair, pulling it up off his face, twisting it into a loose, messy bun near the crown of his head. Sam didn’t know if he’d done a good job, but he needed Cas’ hair out of the way, and he imagined the long wild mane of hair didn’t help Cas feel cooler. Still, a few sopping wet strands stuck to Cas’ face and neck. 

Sam and Dean worked for a good ten minutes, both taking turns trying to speak to Cas, or murmuring words of comfort when Cas dissolved into unintelligible weeping. Dean continued to run the sponge over Cas’ face, arms and legs, even lifting his shirt to run it over his stomach or tugging down his collar to wipe the ice water over his chest. From behind, Sam did the same to Cas’ neck, holding his sponge behind his ears, or lifting his t-shirt and running the sponge over his back.

When Cas curled forward and went still, his sobs halting, Sam thought he’d snapped out of it. He leaned to the side to meet Dean’s eye, but immediately understood from the panicked look on Dean’s face that something was wrong.

“No, no, no,” Dean mumbled, shooting up onto his knees from his seated position on his heels, his hands on Cas, one on his stomach, the other slipped over his cheek. “Talk to me, what’s going on?”

Sam jumped up from the bench and walked around to look down at Cas. Immediately, Sam understood. Cas’s face was twisted in pain, tears leaking out of the corner of his eyes, his mouth hanging open like words were too painful to voice. One of his hands was gripping the damp material of his shirt, the other was squeezing Dean’s hand so hard that his knuckles were white. Sam began hyper aware that Cas wasn’t making a sound.

“Breathe, Cas,” he instructed. “Breathe.”

He kneeled down beside Dean and rubbed at Cas’ back, nodding in encouragement as Cas began taking laboured breaths, and tipping his head back, gasping for air.

“Good. Good,” Sam coached. He glanced down at Dean, who looked green, whose eyes were sunken, and whose skin was drained. His frantic green eyes were wide and not leaving Cas’ face. He looked stunned. Sam’s other hand rested on Dean’s shoulder and gave a squeeze. “You too, Dean. Breathe.”

“It’s happening, isn’t it?” Dean breathed, sounding faint.

Sam’s stomach turned and he nodded, aware that he had to be the grounded one, the voice of calm. “Yeah. I think so. I…think that was a contraction. A real one.”

With a strangled cry, Cas tilted his head back down. Under Sam’s hand, he felt Cas’ muscles relax.

When his clumped lashes seperated and his eyes opened, the blue there was lucid.

“Dean,” Cas said, his teeth chattering. “I feel sick.”

Once Cas released his hand, Dean brought both of his hands back to Cas’ face, thumbs stroking anxiously at Cas’ cheekbones. 

“Hey. Hey. It’s okay, Cas. That’s okay,” he reassured. “We’re gonna make you feel better. We’re…we’re trying.”

“I’m so happy you’re here,” Cas whispered, his voice thick and wet, the hazy look of delusion clouding his vision again. “I’m so tired. It’s too hot in here. I can’t stand it. It’s too hot. It’s too hot.”

“I know,” Dean nodded, his voice gentle but steady, despite the tremor in his hands. “I got you though, buddy. Sam and I got you. We’re gonna cool you down.”

“We didn’t count, Dean. We gotta count when Cas has another contraction,” Sam explained in a rush. “We gotta figure out how long they are, and how much time there is in between.”

“I feel sick,” Cas whispered again, sniffing wetly. “I want to go home.”

Dean got to his feet, grabbing Cas’ arm and slinging it around his shoulders, tugging the girl to her feet. Dean looked up at Sam with determination. 

“We’re lowering this fever, okay?” he spat. “I’m not gonna let Cas suffer. Grab my phone, get Cas a change of clothes - something thin - and meet me in the bathroom. I’m gonna try a cool shower. Make sure the phone is charged, we need it for a timer.”

Sam nodded with a jerk of his head and jogged ahead to his room. 

This was it, he thought with a sick, tight feeling in his stomach that wouldn't go away, that wouldn't unfurl. 

The baby was coming. 

Cas was going to die.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uhhhh ohhhh...
> 
> Leave me a comment to tell me how much you hate me! xD


	14. Our Girl

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Second chapter of the day, as promised!
> 
> At the rate that we're going, this fic should be complete by Friday! WOOOOO!

Once out of the shower, Cas looked significantly better. His eyes weren’t as glassy anymore and he seemed lucid. 

It was touch and go for a while though, as Dean went into the shower with Cas and held him under the cool water until he stopped mumbling in Enochian and actually started to answer questions intelligibly. Sam waited just outside, sitting on the benches by the sinks.

He spent his waiting time looking up child labour, trying to collect all the information they might need. Turned out, not a single delivery was the same and not any one woman had the same timeline, it seemed. Reactions, sensations, and the length of the process varied, which Sam found infuriating. 

When Dean came out, he grabbed clothes, tugging the pieces apart and inspecting them. He frowned at Sam. 

“Dude is boiling and you brought long sleeves?”

After pursing his lips for a second, Sam rebutted, “It’s all Cas has that’s clean. Look, it’s one of the women’s button-ups so it’ll be thinner, and it’s loose. Don’t complain. We’ll roll up the sleeves. He’ll be comfortable.”

Dean didn’t fight him on it anymore. As Dean disappeared back into the shower area, Sam went back to his research. 

He was left alone for only a minute longer before Dean barked at him to start the timer. For a long fifty seconds, Sam listened to Cas’ shaking breaths and gasps. 

On Dean’s orders, he stopped the timer and made a note on his phone. Minutes later, Dean and Cas came out of the shower, dried off and looking exhausted, the both of them. Cas was walking on his own, though he had a hand curled around the bottom of his stomach and there were dark smudges under his eyes.

“Looking good, Cas,” Sam joked. He thought it might fall flat, judging by the narrow-eyed glare that Dean shot him over Cas’ shoulder. But Cas smiled tiredly. 

“Thank you, Sam.” 

His voice was hoarse, the words sounding like they required much effort to form. 

“Ignore him,” Dean joked, pushing a rogue damp hair behind Cas’ ear. His hand disappeared over Cas’ shoulder as he slid it down his spine and settled it on his lower back. “Though you do look hot.”

Sam groaned at the pun, while Cas continued to smile faintly. He turned his face to Sam, looking genuinely appreciative. “I am very comfortable, Sam. Thank you. For everything. For this, for earlier, for--”

The words ‘for everything’ sounded a lot like a goodbye, and so a little jolt shot down Sam’s stomach. He said impulsively, “Whoa, hey. Enough of that. We’re family, this is what we do. We take care of our own.”

“Yes, of course,” Cas breathed, nodding tiredly, long brown wet hair slipping into his face. His head bowed forward a bit as Cas reached up with a thin hand and pushed hair behind his ear. He swallowed and licked his lips, his eyes shutting. 

Dean and Sam got Cas to bed in Dean’s room. They set up fans, Sam made sure to stock water bottles on the nightstand, and Dean fetched ice packs from the fridge, wrapping them in towels. From the bed, Cas insisted that he wasn’t worth all the trouble, but when one ice pack went between his legs, one went under his arm, and another nestled on the back of his neck, Cas’ groan was telling enough.

Sam offered to stay, to take shifts, but Dean insisted he could watch Cas on his own. After reminding Dean to time the contractions, and advising him to sleep, Sam retired to his room. 

***

Sam had to fetch Dean for breakfast the next morning. He’d made food and waited for Dean to join him. He’d seen Dean up, seen his shadow move across the light shining from his bedroom doorway. But when twenty minutes passed, the food went cold, and there was no Dean, Sam had to go to him.

“Dean,” Sam whispered into the room, peering around the open door frame. “Come eat.”

Dean was lying behind Cas, one arm thrown around his waist. The other arm was bent, his fingers rubbing at his eyes.

“I’m not hungry,” Dean replied quietly, not wanting to wake Cas. Sam glanced at Cas, concern swirling in his chest as he noticed Cas shaking, his face pale, his closed eyes jerking and swirling around under his lids. Again, his skin shone with a concerning layer of sweat.

“How’s he doing?” Sam asked.

Dean sat up and shook his head. He tucked hair behind Cas’ ear. “Not good.”

Sam tsked sympathetically, his lip twitching down into a frown. “How’re the contractions?” 

“Bad,” Dean replied shortly, still gazing down at Cas, his fingers subconsciously rubbing at Cas’ bare arm. “Really bad. They’re eight minutes apart, last about a minute. They’re really hard to watch. They keep waking him up. Dude can’t catch a break.”

Sam leaned against the doorframe. “When was the last one?”

Dean dragged his fingers gently over the smooth skin inside of Cas’ arm. “Bout two minutes ago, but he’s just so exhausted, he fell back asleep.”

Sam nodded and pushed himself off the doorframe. He tucked his hair behind his ear and said, “Well, that gives you six minutes to eat. Come on. Get something in you.”

Only a minute later, Dean and Sam were settling down at the table. Once Sam pushed a plate of food in front of him, they tucked in.

“How are you holding up?” Sam asked gently. 

Dean was quiet. He chewed slowly. “Peachy.”

“Dean,” Sam said warningly.

Dean huffed a bit with laughter; it was bitter and hollow. He lowered his fork and used it to push food around his plate without enthusiasm. 

“The love of my life is dying, Sam. And there’s nothing I can do but watch and make him comfortable. Is that what you’re asking about?” Dean looked up at Sam. His eyes were red and the bags under them were deep. He looked like he’d aged ten years. “I’m barely holding it together. But Cas is priority until…until it happens. So I gotta stow my crap, and you gotta stop asking me if I’m okay or how I’m holding up.”

It was clear from the waver in his voice that Dean didn’t mean to be malicious, even if his voice was clipped. Sam could not say, that if he was in the same position, he wouldn’t react the same. 

“Sure,” Sam nodded. He got to his feet and poured a cup of coffee, sliding it over to Dean. 

His brother glanced up and his eyes softened a bit, nodding and taking the gesture of solidarity. 

“Get caffeinated,” Sam ordered, nodding at the cup. He glanced at his watch. “You have four and a half minutes. Or, I can tap in so you can finish your breakfast.”

But Dean was already shaking his head, spearing a piece of banana with his fork reluctantly. “Nah. I got this, Sam. You just--”

“Dean? Sam?” 

Sam and Dean both looked up as the small, weak voice from the hallway. Cas stepped into the kitchen from the darkness of the hallway. His hair had escaped its hair tie and was tumbled down around his shoulders. He gripped the door frame and leaned heavily on it. Cas’ face was frightened, his eye wide and wet. 

“Something’s wrong,” Cas whispered, his voice thick and shaking.

Dean and Sam exchanged looks, and while Sam stared at Cas with a pang of horror, Dean twisted in his seat, looking ready to get up.

“What is it, Cas?” Sam probed. At the same time, Dean also asked, “What’s wrong?”

They both paled in horror when Cas’s hand, tucked under his stomach, raised into the air. Dark rivulets of red curled around his fingers and dripped off the ends.

“I’m bleeding,” Cas whispered faintly, turning his hand and watching the thick layer of blood that coated his palm drip around the sides of his fingers and down his wrist. The colour in Cas’ face drained out in a horrifying second, leaving his skin white and his lips colourless. Glassy blue eyes turned up to look at Dean.

Cas swallowed hard, his lashes fluttering as he breathed, “I need help.”

The benches on either side of the kitchen table were pushed out with loud, ear-bursting scrapes across the floor as Sam and Dean erupted to their feet and crossed the room in three urgent steps. They moved in sync, like a they had choreographed their movements or understood each other telepathically, because as Dean swept Cas into his arms, Sam ran into the war room, tugging the Impala’s keys off the hook by the stairs, and grabbing all three of their coats, throwing them into his arms.

“Let’s move!” Sam barked, turning around, but Dean had already shoved his feet into his boots and was sweeping past him, ascending the iron stairs with quick, loud clattering of urgent footsteps. Sam put on his own shoes and followed Dean up the stairs quickly.

At the first doors, Sam went ahead so he could open the outside doors and hold them for Dean. When he did so he felt a wave of panic and fear, noticing blood dripping off of Dean’s arm and sliding off Cas’ feet. That was a lot of blood. Too much blood.

“Come on, Sam!” Dean snapped. Sam shook himself from his reverie and swung the bunker door closed, running up the steps and opening the car doors. Dean helped Cas get into the back and ran around to the passenger seat, throwing himself him. Sam climbed into the driver’s seat.

“Hospital, Sam.” Dean ground out as the engine roared. “Now.”

***

“ _Fuck_ ,” Cas whimpered, sniffling wetly, breathing erratically through his mouth. His face shone with panicked, pained tears.

The Impala’s engine roared so loudly that Sam could hardly hear himself think, and his foot ached from pressing down on the accelerator. 

“Come on, Cas,” Dean coached. He was on his knees on the front seat, turned back towards Cas, his hair brushing the top of Impala. “You’re fine, you’re fine.”

“No,” Cas moaned, his eyes squeezed shut, his skin glistening, sweat beading on his forehead. He shook, his trembling hands gripping the front seat, nails digging into the leather as he rode out another contraction. They were getting worse, and getting closer together, faster than they could believe. The hospital was a fifteen-minute drive, and Cas had already had four contractions; one right when he got into the car, then six minutes in, then nine, then eleven.

Sam glanced at Cas in the mirror, watching him press his chin into his chest, his face disappearing behind curtains of wavy hair. 

“What’re we at? Two minutes apart now? Isn’t there supposed to be like, a second stage of labour?” Sam asked, sounding annoyed. He was irritated with their reality; why couldn’t any of this go the way it was supposed to? How was it fair that Cas had to suffer like this? “Isn't it supposed to be calmer? This doesn't seem calmer.”

Dean’s hands were in Cas’ hair, stroking the side of his head, tucking hair behind his ear. He was whispering things to Cas that Sam couldn’t hear because of the rumble of the car. Cas was openly crying again, like yesterday, his eyes glassy as the fever took over again and took him far away. 

The crying and high pitched hiccuping kind of made Sam forget it was Cas in there. The voice was unrecognizable at this point. It really did seem, for the first time since Cas changed, like there was actually a girl in the back seat. She was in excruciating pain, weeping and unable to control her situation. It made the entire thing worse and more frantic, that Cas was so panicked and frightened that he hardly seemed like himself anymore; the angel, the warrior, the other-worldly being was missing. That person was stifled and hidden under the haze of fever and the despair brought on by the shadow of death. 

“I have to get out of here!” Cas wept into his hand. “It’s too small, too confining. I have to get out.”

“Two minutes,” Dean reassured. “We’ll get to a hospital in two minutes.”

“No,” Cas protested with a sharp inhalation of breath, tears tumbling over wet lashes. “I can’t wait. I can’t wait t-that long. She’s coming, I have to get out.”

“She’s… What do you mean ‘ _she’s coming_ ’?” Dean stuttered, reaching out to pat the side of Cas’ face as it bowed. Cas’ hand snapped up and gripped Dean’s wrist, squeezing. He went dangerously still, exhaling slowly.

“Cas!” Dean yelped, his eyes going wide with understanding. “You can’t-can’t _push_ , okay? You gotta wait until we--”

“I can’t control it!” Cas yelled back, his voice shrill, his eyes snapping open, the blue iris’ brilliant against red eyes. “My body is doing it on its own, I c-can’t help it- _-fuck, fuck, fuck!”_

Holy shit. Holy shit. It was happening. How had this happened so fast? How was the baby coming _now?_ Cas was still wearing tights, for fuck’s sake. They were in the car, for fuck’s sake. Sam’s heart was pounding, his stomach was turning. His hands were slipping against the wheel, clammy and damp. He couldn’t imagine how Dean was feeling right now.

“I can’t do this,” Cas whispered roughly, sniffing wetly, releasing a sob. “I can’t do this. I--”

“Yes, you can,” Dean whispered back. Sam glanced in the rearview to see Dean’s hands grasping at Cas’ face, thumb swiping over his cheek. 

Cas swallowed thickly and thick tears ran down his face. “I can’t. I want to go home. I don’t want to die.”

Fuck, they needed to hurry. Cas was breaking down, the fever was getting worse. They need to get to the fucking hospital. Sam’s foot pressed down harder on the accelerator and he glanced in the rearview mirror, wanting to change lanes, but he gasped. His stomach dropped as he saw black, twisting, writhing clouds following the car. 

Demons.

“Fuck! Dean!” Sam yelled frantically. “We didn’t set up the protection spells before we left--”

Dean, busy staring at Cas and stroking his hair as Cas shook violently in the back seat, hadn’t noticed the demons yet. 

“We didn’t really have time, Sam! We were kinda busy--”

“Dean! Demons!”

Dean’s head snapped up and Sam knew he saw the demons pursuing them because he gasped too and yelled roughly, “OH, COME ON!” Then, “Cas, wait, no -- Cas, stop! Don’t! SAM, PULL OVER.”

Sam choked on nothing, disbelieving. “Pull _over?!_ Are you fucking nuts, there are demons!”

“CAS IS TRYING TO GET OUT, PULL-THE-FUCK-OVER!”

As Dean fought Cas, who was pushing him away, Sam got an elbow to the head. 

“Ow, fuck, Dean! Watch it--CAS, STAY IN THE CAR!”

Sam twisted the wheel, veering the Impala onto a wide, open shoulder as Cas pushed the door open while the car was still moving. 

“ _Are you nuts!?_ ” Sam bellowed as billowing clouds of dust curled in through Cas’ open door. The only thing holding Cas inside was Dean’s grasping, desperate hands curled around the back of his arm and his wrist. 

As soon as the car was slammed into park, Cas clambered out the door, disappearing from sight.

“Fuck,” Dean said through his teeth, and scrambled to get out. Sam did the same, skidding and slipping on the gravel under his feet. He threw himself down in front of Cas, who was on his hands and knees, shaking so hard his clothes seem to vibrate, the wispy fabric thrumming.

“She’s coming,” Cas kept whispering. “She’s coming. I can’t hold her back.”

Dean rounded the back of the car and dropped down beside Cas, trying to yank him back into the back seat. Sam looked up as dozens of demons twisted and curled above them like they were in the eye of a storm.

“They’re waiting,” Sam gasped in realization. “Oh my God, they’re waiting for the nephilim.”

There was a clap of thunder, the screech of tires, and Cas screamed. Dean grabbed his hand and threw his arm around Cas’ shoulders. They pressed their foreheads together. Dean’s jaw clenched and his lips trembled as he tried to hold himself together, while Cas tensed up and breathed out in a keening breath. He pushed.

More clouds of dust curled up around them as two black cars came to screech halts around them, trapping them in. Sam’s head snapped from side to side, wondering when the fuck they’d been tailed and how he hadn’t noticed.

From inside the cars, angels poured out, suited up, silver blades gleaming. They closed in, twisting the blades in their hands.

“You let it get too far,” one of them snarled, a tall woman with a tight red bun pulled high on her head. “I can’t believe you, Castiel. You used to be one of us. This has gone too far, it’s time for you and this crime against nature to die--”

Sam rose to his feet and unsheathed an angel blade from the inside of his coat, brandishing it at the angel.

“Stay back!” he barked. Though, as his eyes darted to the angels closing it, he had no idea how he’d stop them all on his own.

The answer came quickly, as one of the demons tumbled down to earth, causing the ground to shake as the demon collided with the gravel. 

Dean threw his arms around Cas, while Sam threw his arm out and braced himself against the car. 

When the smoke cleared, Abaddon stood before them, one of her hands on her hips and an angel blade in the other. Her painted lips were twisted into a smirk.

“Hi, Baby Mama,” she drawled at Cas, winking. She turned to the angels, fixing the other red-head with a look of disdain. “Back away from my girl, she’s _busy_.”

“You fucking bitch,” Dean snarled, turning his face to fix Abaddon with a look that was pure hatred. 

“Oh, look, the sperm donor,” Abaddon groused, rolling her eyes. “You’re being useless as usual. Move.”

Sam and Dean cried out as they were dragged across the gravel, away from Cas, and out of the way. An invisible force pinned them to the ground. Dean screamed in frustration as he struggled to get up, with no avail.

Abaddon stepped towards Cas and kneeled down, reaching between his legs. Weakly, Cas tried to push her away but was gripped by another contraction and he screamed again, grasping at Abaddon as the pain shook through him. 

Even the angels seemed hesitant, unsure what Abaddon was doing. Dean and Sam struggled in the gravel, rocks embedding into their palms and faces.

Abaddon laughed as she jerked her hand back. There was the sound of fabric ripping and then Abaddon gasped, her eyes wide. She turned to Dean, her white teeth flashing.

“I feel her,” she laughed gleefully. “I feel her. She’s coming.”

“No,” Cas moaned, eyes sliding shut. “ _No.”_

“This is not going to happen!” the angel in charge snarled, stepping forward, striding towards Abaddon with purpose. “Move. I’m going to cut it out and slit its throat--”

“You’ll die first, you impotent buzzard!” Abaddon screeched, twisting onto her feet and swiping at the angel with the long flashing blade in her hand. “This angelic mutt is mine, do you understand?”

They fought and parried, dodging and ducking, throwing blows and snarling at each other. The confrontation triggered responses from the other angels, who made efforts to close in on Cas, but were stilted in their movements as demons zoomed down to earth from their writhing cloud in the sky. 

All around them, emerging from black bursts of smoke and showering gravel, were demons. Dozens of them.

“Protect the bitch until the nephilim is here!” Abaddon shrieked, her red hair flying through the air as she ducked. With a snarl, she grabbed the angel she was fighting by the neck and threw her at the Impala. 

The angel crashed into the car, and with the horrible sound of metal screeching and crunching, the Impala flipped into the road in a deafening crash, her windows breaking and her hood crushed. Sam heard Dean yell “ _No!_ ” from his side.

The struggling from Sam and Dean stopped when the red-headed angel landed a hearty punch to Abaddon’s face, sending her skidding back across the ground. Sam felt a snap in his body and he was suddenly free. The magic holding him and Dean to the floor was lifted. 

Sam jumped to his feet, as did Dean, and they weaved through the fighting to get to Cas. 

Dean slid across the gravel on his knees, stopping in front of Cas. Sam felt his heart break as he stopped behind Dean, panting and doubling over, his hands on his knees. Sam felt his face grow hot and tears sting in his eyes.

Cas was white as a ghost. His lips were pale and his hair clung to his face, neck, and chest in wet tendrils. Blood pooled in the gravel around his legs and turned the bottom of his white button-up a fierce shade of red. The most heart-shattering thing was the blank look on his face and the dull glow of grace behind his eyes. 

Sam knew what it meant. It meant that it was almost over. He’d seen that muted shine of grace behind the eyes of every angel he’d ever ran a blade through.

Dean knew it too. His shaking bloody hands came up to Cas’ face, cupping his cheeks.

“No,” Dean moaned. The sound was so terrible Sam’s knees went weak and he felt sick. Dean’s voice was tight and thin. His shoulders shook. His fingers curled and his grip on Cas’ face grew desperate. “Please don’t go. Please stay, Cas, please. Please. _Please_ \--”

With a tiny hiccup and one last shaking exhale, Cas breathed airily, “I love you. Close your eyes.”

The blue glow radiated and grew, getting brighter and brighter. It shone from his mouth, too, and his ears, and from between his legs where his daughter was being born. 

“NO!” Sam heard someone shriek. He turned around in time to see the red-haired angel zoom past him, her blade reeled back, ready to strike.

Sam cried out, words of protest and warning on his lips, but the angel was faster than he had anticipated and the blade was swung towards Cas’ stomach. 

The moment the tip of the blade touched Cas’ skin, there was an enormous, enveloping burst of blue light. Dean and Sam threw their arms up to block their eyes and all around them were shrieks of agony that rose in a crescendo, becoming so loud that Sam clapped his hands over his ears. As the screaming stopped, there was a high ringing noise and a rush of wind that threw Sam to his knees.

When the wind died down, so did the glow and the ringing went with it. Sam opened his eyes and looked around. Sprawled all over the shoulder and the road were people in suits, and burnt wings marred into the ground around them. The demons’ meat suits lay smouldering on the ground, their eyes burnt out, their mouths twisted into expressions of terror.

Sam turned to Dean, who was kneeled on top of Cas, shaking Cas’ shoulders, trying to wake him up. 

Cas’ female vessel was on her side, her hair splayed out across the gravel and clinging to her skin. Her eyes were open and lifeless, staring at Sam. Her shirt was covered in blood, her hands streaked with it. Dean’s fingerprints were smeared across her face where he’d clung to her, moments before death.

There was an abrupt little sob, and Sam realised it had come from himself. He wiped at his eyes, sniffling wetly.

Dean was worse. Dean was broken. He shook Cas. He shook the body aggressively, his face twisted in agony.

“Cas. Cas. _Cas!_ ” Dean yelled, letting her go for a second. Then he sat up and moved down her body, his hands hovering over the large bump. Sam’s heart hammered as he waited, holding his breath.

Something wasn’t right.

“Cas,” Dean whispered, his teeth chattering. “Cas, where’s Gracie?”

Sam felt faint. The baby. Where was the baby?

Dean’s voice was getting more desperate, and he reached down between Cas’ legs, feeling around. “Cas, please, where’s our Gracie? Our girl. S-She’s not here, y-you’re not finished--”

Sam held his breath.

Dean tipped his head back and gasped for air when he raised his hand and came up with nothing but more fresh blood. 

Sam had to do something. He felt himself move, like someone else was doing it for him. And for some fucking reason, his voice came out calm and confident, like he knew what the hell he was talking about. He felt his own body get up and pull Dean away, hoisting Cas up into his arms.

“Dean, your daughter is still in there. We gotta go. The hospital is minutes away. Get yourself together. We can do this.”

Dean was breathing hard through his nose and nodding as he pushed himself to his feet, and strode purposefully towards one of the cars that the angels had abandoned. The engine was still running. Dean threw himself into one of the back seats, then slid halfway out, holding his arms out.

“Give Cas to me,” he demanded, his voice torn apart.

When Sam carefully handed Cas’ body to Dean, his brother held it tightly, pushing Cas’ face into his neck. He sniffed and jerked his head towards the front seat.

“Let’s go.”

After closing the door after Dean, Sam nodded and ran around to the front seat, slamming the door shut behind him. He spotted a GPS system still running. 

‘TARGET IS 0 MILES AWAY.’

A little red dot flashed on the map screen, smack dab in the middle of the road they were on, where the Impala was turned over on her head, destroyed.

That’s how they’d found them. There must have been a tracking device on the Impala.

Sam slammed a hand down on the wheel and growled, but he didn’t tell Dean. He didn’t think it mattered anymore. He glanced back in the mirror, watching Dean cling to Cas, his eyes closed, his mouth moving quickly as he whispered into Cas’ hair.

Sam turned his eyes to the road and threw the car into drive, peeling out onto the road, determined to making something, anything right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'M SO SORRY.
> 
> Please leave a comment to tell me how much you hate me right now. It's okay. I kinda hate me right now after posting this chapter too. T.T Such feels.


	15. Shoes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AH OH GOD I'M SO SORRY IM LATE 
> 
> Real life has made me a sleepy girl who goes to bed early and falls asleep on the couch.

Years ago during a case, Sam had overheard Dean admit to a scared, mute little boy that he too had stopped talking after their mom had died. It had been sad to hear, and Sam had felt pity for his brother, but he hadn’t quite understood what he’d meant. He simply couldn’t picture Dean behaving like that at all. He just couldn’t picture him process trauma that way.

Now Sam desperately wished he could still say that, but he couldn’t -- not after their visit to the hospital.

They had burst in with Cas in Dean’s arms, blood still dripping from them both 

_She’s pregnant_ , they explained. 

_She randomly started bleeding,_ they lied.

 _Her heart,_ Sam had choked out, _just stopped._

 _The baby,_ Dean had whispered like his words were being pushed through a pinhole. _She’s still in there._

...because that’s what they’d thought. 

The nurses and ER doctors had been amazing. They’d taken Cas from Dean quicker than the brothers could process. Cas was hooked up to all manner of machines within a minute and before Sam or Dean knew what was happening, the medical staff had paddles to his chest and an oxygen mask on his female face, as if he was still alive. 

Perhaps, Sam thought in retrospect, that’s what the nurses and doctors had genuinely thought. Maybe they thought they could bring Cas back from the dead. It explained why they kept saying something about ‘cardiac arrest’ and kept trying to jump-start his heart. It explained why they rushed Cas to an operating room. 

Maybe they’d been trying to spare Dean and Sam extra grief, buying time to figure out what the fuck was going on with this dead pregnant girl so that they could give her family concrete answers.

Dean was silent while they waited. A nurse had shown them to the hallway just outside the operating room. She’d shown them where to sit and told them where to find coffee, food, and water. Sam had thanked her while Dean stared at the operating room door, his eyes shining.

He didn’t speak to Sam. He didn’t respond to questions or offer up any of his own. He didn’t even cry anymore. He just stared at the door. 

He stared at the obstetric surgeon as the man came out of the O.R., his face pale and puzzled. His surgical cap was twisted in his hands.

There was no baby in there, the man had said, his moustache quivering, his eyes hesitant with cautious confusion. There had been a placenta which had not yet been pushed out, but there wasn’t a baby in there. The umbilical cord looked like it had been severed with fire, cauterized.

He said, with regret, that he hadn’t been able to save ‘the mother’. ‘Her’. They had tried, but she was gone.

It was only then that Dean spoke. He asked when he could take Cas home.

When the doctor gently explained that he couldn’t let them do that, that she was a coroner’s case now because of the trauma to the body, that he could only let them briefly see her, Sam realised that they weren’t ever taking Cas home. He was actually surprised the police hadn’t swept down on them sooner; they’d brought in a dead pregnant girl, bleeding from between her legs, her clothing ripped, her baby gone with nothing left in its wake but an umbilical cord that had been scorched.

The 911 call had probably already been made. 

Sam and Dean left the hospital quickly as the doctor left them for a moment to ‘make her presentable’ for them.

***

They had gone through so much trauma in their lives, and they’d handled the different types of tragedies in a variety of ways. But Dean always seemed combative against the shitty things that happened to them. He always seemed to have a fire in him, even if it was driven by pain and sadness. Sam thought back at Dean’s coping mechanisms and remembered feeling annoyed that Dean dealt with his pain in ways that resorted to violence and rage. Looking back, Sam felt stupid for feeling annoyed; now he desperately wanted some fire and rage from his brother. Instead, Dean looked broken. 

Dean sat in the passenger seat with his hands between his legs, his fingers curled loosely, and he swayed with the movement of the car over bumps in the road, like he couldn’t be bothered to hold himself still. His eyes were far away, his face slack and his mouth parted a bit; he looked destroyed. He looked like he didn’t know who he was, or what to do with himself. If Sam asked where they were, he wasn’t sure Dean would be able to answer. 

He simply wasn’t there. 

While Sam called some hunter friends to go back and clear up the supernatural mess they’d left on the side of the road, and tow the Impala, Dean didn’t react. He just stared out the window, eyes in lost and despaired, like he was recalling every heart-shattering moment of the last few hours.

Finally, Sam parked in front of the bunker and turned off the engine. He looked over at Dean but Dean hadn’t seemed to even register they’d stopped. He just kept staring out of the front window.

Sam didn’t push. He didn’t move, he didn’t speak, he didn’t even take the keys out of the ignition. He just sat and watched Dean out of his peripherals as he looked out into the road.

It had rained. 

Castiel had been Dean’s soul mate, but he’d been important to Sam, too. He had been the closest Sam had ever had to a best friend. They’d gone through too much and saved each other too many times for his death to mean nothing. 

Sam’s hand trembled as he reached up to finally take the keys out.

How could they go into the bunker without Cas? 

Cas would never walk into the bunker again.

Cas wouldn’t ever again appear out of nowhere and scare the shit out of Dean, or clunk down the stairs after a long trip.

He wouldn’t nibble happily on bacon Dean’d made for him. Sam wouldn’t ever have to pick up his clothes from the bathroom floor or close the kitchen cabinets after him because Cas was a serial door-opener.

Sam wouldn’t -- though Cas’ time in his female form was brief -- ever see him twist his ridiculously long wild hair into a bun or a ponytail when it was annoying him. 

There were probably still hair bands all over the place. Cas’ phone was probably still on Dean’s nightstand, charging as if he’d be using it again soon. There probably _was_ still clothing on the bathroom floor or cabinets open in the kitchen. They still had a peanut butter jar labeled ‘Cas’ PB’ because he’d developed a habit of dripping pickles in it and that grossed Dean out too much for them to share a communal jar.

Sam’s eyes glazed with tears as he snuck a glance over at Dean’s wrists, seeing a few thin hair bands tangled together with brown strands of hair, digging into his skin.

A little sharp inhale surprised Sam but he realised it was from himself, and he quickly reached up to wipe a hot tear trail from his face.

He’d meant to ask Dean if he wanted to go inside or what he wanted to do, but instead Sam opened his mouth and almost outside of his control, he pointed out with a watery voice, “I didn’t know you’d named her Gracie.”

“Don’t say her name,” Dean uttered absently. Unlike with Lisa and Ben, Dean’s words held no malice, no anger. It was a miserable request, voiced weakly, like he didn’t have enough energy in his body to speak, but the words had slipped out by sheer necessity to breathe.

Sam nodded, all the warmth left in his body, draining as he watched his brother die slowly beside him, the personality he loved and knew growing dull and vacant in the seat. 

“What do you want to do now?” Sam asked, placing a firm, comforting hand on Dean’s shoulder.

His brother gazed out into the road.

“I want to sleep.”

***

Once inside, Sam felt dread, and a terrible wrenching pain in his stomach as he followed a trail of blood down the stairs and to the kitchen. He should’ve gotten out before Dean, he should’ve gone in first and cleaned Cas’ blood, but he hadn’t thought of it. Not until he saw the dark red splotches dotted across the floor.

Perhaps it didn’t matter, because Dean walked over the blood and disappeared past the kitchen, into the unlit hallways towards the bedrooms. Sam followed cautiously, tugging off his jacket and pretending like he’d been planning on going in that direction too.

He saw Dean flinch as he passed his baby’s room, and he saw him begin to open the door to his own room, but then paused. Sam, just at the end of the hall, watched for a breathless moment.

Dean stepped away from the door handle and moved down the hallway to Cas’ room instead. He turned the knob slowly and pushed the door open.

Sam watched Dean gaze into the room, his hands limp at his side, his throat working. He could see Dean’s eyes travel around the room, taking in the sights. Dean’s head tilted down to the floor and he stared. He stared and stared for such a long time, down at the floor.

Then, Sam saw the exact moment Dean broke. He saw his eyes flutter faintly and his jaw clench. Even seeing him from fairly far away, Sam knew -- because he knew his brother -- that Dean wasn’t going to hold on much longer. 

Dean’s hand went up to the door frame and he gripped hard.

Sam abandoned plans to go into his own room. He walked down the hallway towards Dean with a purposeful stride and stopped, suddenly gentle, his hand on Dean’s back landing with determined caution.

Dean didn’t move. He just stared.

Sam followed his gaze and then froze.

Two white handprints stuck out brightly against the faded dark grey of Dean’s stretched out AC/DC shirt. The shirt Dean and Cas had made together, the shirt Dean and Cas were going to leave for their little girl, something to remember Cas by, was laid out flat on the floor. A tiny fan on Cas’ bedside table had been turned towards the shirt to dry it.

Sam acted fast as Dean dropped, his legs giving out. Sam swung an arm around Dean’s waist, but he stumbled, the other arm bracing himself against the wall. The save was clumsy, but he successfully caught Dean mid-fall.

Dean buried his face in his hands. He still hadn’t made a sound though.

“What can I do for you, Dean?” Sam whispered, hugging his brother from behind, his fingers gripping Dean’s shirt. “Tell me how I can help.”

Into his hands, Dean choked, “Get me out of here.”

***

There were very few places Sam could take Dean that didn’t remind him of sleeping beside Cas. All the bedrooms looked the same. 

He couldn’t even take him to the TV room with the squishy couches. Cas had holed up in the TV room. 

Cas had left his mark on every room in the bunker. The only solution was to create a space for Dean where he hadn’t woken up next to Cas.

Sam got fresh covers and tore pillows off one of the spare beds, needing the sheets to smell like laundry, not Cas. He tucked the pillows under his arms and threw the covers over his shoulder. 

He moved fast. After throwing the sheets into an armchair in the library, Sam spun on his heel and trudged back to the bedrooms. He tugged a mattress off of a spare bed and dragged it to the library. As he finished making the makeshift bed, he shuddered, noticing a chill in the air. He slipped a hot water bottle under the covers to warm them up for his brother.

Sam stepped back, eyeing his handiwork, taking inventory of the small bed he’d created for Dean in one of the library alcoves. 

He considered making Dean something to eat, but knew that Dean probably wouldn’t touch it. Sam didn’t think he could eat either. His stomach felt full of lead.

When he was finished, once he plugged in a lamp near the top of the mattress, Sam turned around and walked back to the war room where he’d left Dean sitting at the table. The glass of dark amber liquid he’d poured for Dean earlier was untouched. The ice he’d put in it was melted and the sides were cloudy with condensation. There were no fingerprints in the water droplets. It was truly untouched.

Dean just stared into it, eyes completely disconnected. Behind a thick, glistening sheen of fresh, unshed tears, Dean wasn’t in there. He was somewhere else. Sam wondered if he was in the past or in the future. Either one would no doubt put that expression on his brother’s face. 

“Dean,” Sam whispered, putting a hand on his shoulder and giving it a gentle squeeze. “Hey, man. I made you a bed in the library. It’s, uh, it’s the middle of the afternoon though. You hungry? You haven’t eaten anyth--”

Dean stood and walked past Sam, toward the makeshift bed on the floor. Sam frowned and followed. Dean seemed not to realise Sam was following, or maybe he simply didn’t care. 

He crawled into the bed.

“Dean, your shoes--” Sam began to say, about to point out not only the shoes, but also that Dean still wore the jacket and clothing covered in dry blood.

If Dean could hear Sam, he did a remarkable job of pretending he didn’t. Dean disappeared under the covers, pulling them over his head. 

Sam sighed and turned off the lamp by Dean’s head.

He retired to his own room. Once he was behind the heavy oak door, Sam also crawled into bed and pulled the covers over his head.

Much like Dean, he suspected, Sam did not enjoy a peaceful sleep. While he hadn't lost a child or a lover, Sam had lost a brother. The ache of grief left him both thoroughly exhausted and unable to calm the incessant echo of “you didn't do enough” that whispered in his mind until the early hours of the morning. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Leave me a comment to scold me for posting late and also what you're thinking about the story so far. ;)


	16. Gracie

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OH BOY, OH BOY, OH BOY.
> 
> Just one more chapter after this one and an epilogue...

Dean did not sleep.

He lost track of what time it was or if it was the afternoon anymore. He had heard Sam try to ask him to take off his shoes, but Dean didn’t have the energy to care. He lay in bed in his bloody clothes and his shoes and he didn’t care.

Castiel wasn’t in the bunker. He wasn’t anywhere in any of these rooms. He would never be in any of the rooms again. One day -- one day soon -- his smell would fade away from the bedsheets and from his room, from his clothing and from little Gracie’s nursery.

Dean didn’t think he could do it. He couldn’t get out of bed today, tomorrow, or the day after. He simply could not get up, and be in this bunker, and live this life where Cas wasn’t in it. He’d done it too many times. He’d given too much. He couldn’t give again. He couldn’t. Not this time, not after they’d finally put excuses aside and let themselves love each other. Not after Gracie.

He would just have to stay in this bed forever. It would stop time, it would mean he could pretend Cas was just sleeping, that Gracie was floating around in Cas’ belly and doing that little wriggly thing she always did when Cas tried to roll over.

Dean closed his eyes and remembered Cas’ grumbling and complaining in the middle of the night.

_“She’s wriggling around. She won’t stop,” Cas had whispered in the dark, groaning and shifting around in the covers._

_Dean had grinned into his pillow. “Serves you right for having those annoying ribs poking her in the head. I’d be wriggly too. Try to have a few less ribs next time, jeeze, Cas.”_

_“Ask her to stop,” Cas had grumbled, reaching out for Dean. “She likes you better.”_

_They did this almost every night. Dean would put his hands on Cas belly and rub, feeling his little girl shifting under his hands, kicking or headbutting him._

_“Gracie, stop back-talking,” Dean would laugh, grinning at Cas in the dark, feeling Cas’ glare. Gracie would headbutt him again. “If you stop kicking your mom, I’ll give you five bucks.”_

_Their daughter seemed to do a somersault._

_Cas groaned. “She hates me.”_

_Dean shuffled closer, pressing a kiss to Cas’ cheek. “Ten bucks.”_

_She headbutted him._

_“Thirty bucks, and I buy you a car when you’re sixteen.”_

_Their baby relaxed, settling back into her happy float. Cas nuzzled Dean’s face with his nose. “Thank you.”_

_Dean snuggled closer and gave Cas’ belly a little tap. “No problem. Don’t tell her, but I’ll probably just steal the car.”_

_A small happy flip of his stomach accompanied the set of small kisses Cas planted on the corner of his lips._

_“You’re going to be a great father, Dean.”_

Dean sniffed wetly, his face twisted into an anguished grimace. He held his breath, somehow hoping that if he didn’t breathe, then the emotions wouldn’t bubble up. But they did and he cried softly, the pillow under his face growing damp as tears fell freely over the bridge of his nose.

Dean reached out and placed his hand down on the other side of the bed. He closed his eyes again and remembered Cas after the Fall, laying down beside him. He recalled his borrowed t-shirts stretched across his shoulder blades, rising and falling as he slept, his short brown hair all messy from sleep. He remembered waking up in the morning in a tangle of limbs, with a mouthful of hair as Cas clung to him in his sleep. He remembered running a hand up and down his thigh, and remembered nipping at the end of his nose to wake him up. He remembered lazy kisses in the kitchen as they prepared food for Sam, who was sick, who still hadn’t left his bed for days. Dean remembered lifting Cas off the floor, wrapping his legs around his waist as he slid him back onto the island in the kitchen. His heart squeezed, knowing he wouldn’t ever feel the sensual drag of stubble against his own, and eager, clumsy lips pressing kisses all over his face.

Dean opened his eyes, looking at his hand spread flat on the bed. There was no naked tanned back to drag his finger across, nor was there a lined forehead and crow's feet to brush his knuckles over. There was nothing but a flat mattress under his hand where Cas should be.

And Gracie. She should be here. She should have been in his arms already. Dean knew he’d done terrible things in his life and committed endless horrors in Hell, but for something like this to happen to him seemed undeserved. He didn’t think he earned losing a child, and he fucking knew for sure that Gracie hadn’t earned death. She hadn’t even been given a chance to breathe her first breath or cry or smile or…anything..

She hadn’t gotten to come home, or sleep in her crib, or open her eyes to see the night sky Cas and Dean had created on her ceiling. Cas had painted the night sky from memory with swirls of blue and purple, with highlights of bright magenta and green. He’d plotted out the stars in white and Dean had emphasized them with those silly fluorescent stickers that every kid had in their room at some point. Dean remembered having them on his bedroom ceiling as a kid. His mom had stuck them up there for him too.

Pushing off his covers, Dean sat up and kicked off his shoes. He tore the jacket off his shoulders and threw it aside. Then he got up and strode purposefully to his room to change his clothing.

Once he was in clean clothing, he walked to the bathroom and washed his hands and face where he had fingerprints of blood smeared.

Then Dean stopped by Cas’ room.

With a heavy heart, he pushed open the door and stepped inside, instantly hit with the warm scent of Cas. Linen, lemon, and cinnamon.

Dean’s hand went to the doorframe, his legs trembling. He shut his eyes and took deep breaths to calm himself, though with every inhale he just smelled Cas, Cas, Cas…

Dean opened his eyes, reminding himself why he was here with a sharp, tear-glazed glance at the floor. With three quick strides in, he grabbed up the t-shirt and walked out again, veering around the doorframe into the hallway, his chest heaving as he tried to keep himself together.

Then with gentleness, his hand rested on the door to Grace’s room. Dean leaned his forehead against the door for a moment, eyes closed, his breath slowing down.

With a whisper that trembled, Dean said, “I’m sorry we never got to meet. I’m sorry that I couldn’t save your mom. Cas was the greatest person I ever met. I’m s-sorry you two never got to meet either. I hope you’re somewhere where nothing hurts and...and--” Dean’s voice got so thick he almost choked. He raised his other hand to press his knuckles against the door, the t-shirt clung-to tightly. Summoning up some courage, because he knew it was in there, deep, he whispered, “I love you.”

He turned the handle.

He would tell his daughter all about Cas. He’d explain to her how they made the t-shirt, how Cas had taken every ounce of precision he had to paint the bees that flew on the walls. He’d tell Gracie all about the angel of Thursday, who saved everyone and never really asked for anything in return, not really.

Dean pushed open the door.

***

There was pain until there wasn’t.

Castiel felt Grace die inside him. She had tried to get out... Little Gracie had tried to be born but something went wrong. He felt her stop moving down, he felt her heart stop, and he felt the grace burst from inside her.

Behind Dean’s shoulder, he saw the shadow of a reaper. Tall. Pale. Dressed in all back. Their hands joined somberly in front of them, fingers intertwined.

He’d said his goodbye to Dean, and he’d warned him and Sam to close their eyes. The ache in his soul, caused by the desperate pleading from Dean, was at least partially soothed as he heard screams of angels and demons dying too. At least Dean and Sam would be safe. At least they would live.

The heat from Gracie’s death ripped his soul from his body as the grace imploded. He wasn’t sure what happened to his vessel. He wasn’t sure what happened to Grace. He didn’t know what was worse for Dean; if their baby girl’s body had been left behind, or if it hadn’t.

Hell felt different than he remembered, from when he’d saved Dean, or when he had visited with Crowley a few years back. Under his body, he felt a hard, smooth floor. It was quiet, except for the occasional shuffling of feet. He thought he should perhaps open his eyes. It was silly, but Castiel figured if he didn’t open them, he could postpone the eternal torture.

He missed Dean already. He missed Sam. He ached just thinking of Gracie. He hoped, though he knew he shouldn’t, that she had found a place in Heaven somewhere. He desperately hoped none of the angels had found a way back into Heaven. He hoped she was hidden from them.

He wondered where she was. Was she being held? Taken care of? Or was she alone?

He could almost hear her crying.

Castiel opened his eyes.

He could hear her crying.

Abruptly, Castiel pushed himself off the floor, his limbs trembling as he looked around. White walls, bright lights, a cold hard white marble floor. An obnoxious fluffy white carpet under a glass desk…

He was in Heaven. He was in Naomi’s -- no, Metatron’s office.

“Oh, I’m so happy you’re awake!” Metatron exclaimed from behind him, shocking Castiel so badly he sucked in a sharp breath and jumped.

He was so confused. He didn’t know where to focus. He wanted to look around, he wanted to lunge at Metatron, he wanted to demand to know what the hell was going on... And he was also strangely distracted by the fact that his chest was flat and he didn’t have long hair tickling his face anymore. As Metatron stepped over him, Castiel ran his hands over his hair, his face, and shoulders, then down his chest. Flat. Hard. Short hair. Stubble.

He pushed himself up onto his knees and looked down at himself. He was wearing his old attire, without the trenchcoat and suit jacket. His white button-up was wrinkled and rolled up at the sleeves, his tie dangling loosely around his neck. He was in his male form.

His head jerked up and he stared at Metatron in anger and confusion.

“What is going on here?” Castiel choked out, grasping at the chair in front of him as leverage to get up. He jutted a finger at Metatron, who was crossing to the other side of the desk. “Why am I here? I-I should be in Hell. Where is my daughter?”

Metatron grinned and raised a hand in mockery of surrender. “Castiel, Castiel. Calm _down_. Sit.”

“I don’t want to _sit,_ I want answers!” he snapped in response, but Metatron clicked his fingers and Castiel felt his wobbly legs give out under him. He struggled to slip into the chair in front of him, the air punched out of his lungs and his hands grasped at the arm rests.

Metatron stood behind the desk, shaking his head and smiling knowingly. Castiel desperately wished for an angel blade so he could drive it through the bottom of Metatron’s chin and break that nasty smile.

“You’re not very good at taking directions, are you, Castiel?” Metatron simpered, wriggling his fingers in the air. “I mean, that’s been the rumor for centuries, but you’ve confirmed it to me twice now.”

“What are you talking about?” Castiel growled, his fingernails digging into the chair.

Metatron sighed and pulled out his chair, dropping into it. He looked at Castiel with a twinkle in his eye. “I told you, Castiel; fall in love, make a baby. I didn’t say fall in love, make a baby, have the baby die and also die tragically yourself.”

Castiel ground his teeth and bared them, hissing, “You sent me back down to earth with no idea I had grace inside of me. Y-You had me believe I was human. And then you allowed me to conceive a nephilim with barely enough grace to sustain it! Of course, she died, you imp! You commited her to death by default! She never even have a chance, did she?! You…You--”

As Castiel’s voice rose into yell, he got to his feet and planted his hands down on the desk in front of him, nails grinding into the glass surface, his face twisted in anger. The fury left him shaking and left a lump in his throat so thick he didn’t think he could speak anymore. Rage thrummed through him and made him stomach heavy. He felt sick with it.

Metatron was still smiling. His blue eyes gazed up at Castiel from his seat behind the desk.

“I am not the evil you believe me to be, Castiel,” Metatron explained with a tiny tilt of his head and a shrug. “I didn’t do this on purpose. I simply miscalculated. I needed enough grace for the spell, but I had hoped I’d left enough in you for this purpose.”

“To create a nephilim,” Castiel clarified bitterly.

“Yes.”

Castiel’s jaw clenched. His teeth hurt from squeezing his teeth together so hard. “Why?”

Metatron huffed with laughter. “Why? Because I wanted you to have a child. I knew you wouldn’t go out and find a wife, have a baby, enjoy a normal life. You were, and always have been, too wrapped up in Dean Winchester to do anything else. I wanted the story, Castiel. I wanted to gift you with the miracle of life, of creating life, of living a life to the fullest!” Metatron lowered the hands he’d been waving as emphasis, and he gazed at Castiel softly. “You worked so hard to help me, thinking that you were saving Heaven. Your intentions were good, they were pure. I had only hoped to give you a gift.”

Castiel stared down at the dumpy man and narrowed his eyes. His lips twisted in distaste, Castiel whispered, “That’s bullshit.”

Metatron rolled his eyes at Castiel’s blunt comment. He pointed a finger up at him. “You’ve been spending too much time with Dean Winchester.”

“Tell me the truth,” Castiel barked, his hand snapping out and grabbing the scribe by his collar.

After a little yelp of surprise, Metatron’s soft gaze faded away and that mischievous twinkle reaffirmed itself, his impish little lips twisting into a grin. They stared at each other.

Then, after a thoughtful pause, Metatron revealed, “Maybe I’ll need another nephilim someday, Castiel. You think casting the angels out and closing off Heaven was the only spell on the angel tablet?”

“I knew it,” Castiel breathed, his fist twisting in Metatron’s clothes.

Metatron’s grin widened. “Spells need ingredients, and God loved to use nephilim in the ones he conjured. Twisted, wasn’t he, our father? He thought he’d include ingredients that are rare to come by. I supposed he didn’t see _me_ coming though, did he? Or you, for that matter. A rebellious angel, and a scribe who writes his own original stories. Two of his children who sought to make their own destinies,” Metatron chuckled, the dark sound rumbling from deep in his throat. “Or, in my case, breed his ‘rare’ ingredients into existence.”

Castiel had heard enough. He raised his fist and was ready to crush it into Metatron’s face over and over for all the pain he’d cause him, Dean, Sam, the angels, all of Heaven, and little Gracie, who never even had a chance. But Metatron jumped and said quickly, “Tread lightly now, Castiel. If you hurt me, I might have trouble remembering where we put your little one. She’s around here somewhere, but I can have a downstairs move arrange if you so much as lay a finger on me.”

Castiel immediately released the scribe, who yelped and dropped down into his chair in a panicked little flail. He stepped away from the desk, shaking his head in confusion.

“Grace… She’s here?”

Metatron snorted. “Of course she is. She died, Castiel, and we both know where innocent souls go when they die. I’m sorry to say that the grace wasn’t enough to sustain her and she imploded. She burnt herself alive. It was unpleasant and unfortunate.”

Castiel felt like throwing up. His girl. His small baby…

“As soon as I realised you were going to die and that I hadn’t left enough grace to sustain the nephilim, I found a reaper who would intercept your route to Hell,” Metatron explained. “All I had to do was give them back their wings and grant them access to Heaven again. Actually, I’ve gained a few allies since we last spoke, Castiel,” Metatron said conversationally, swinging his finger in the air, gesturing to the office. “The place feels less empty with others around. I hadn’t anticipated how lonely it would be. I thought it might be nice to allow a select few--”

“Where is she? Give her to me,” Castiel interrupted. Metatron raised his eyebrows at the demand. Swallowing his pride, Castiel added quietly, “Please.”

Metatron’s brows relaxed and he grinned. He snapped his fingers and the glass door to the office slid open.

The reaper from the side of the road, the one he’d seen over Dean’s shoulder, walked slowly into the room. She was tall, stern looking, pale, and had a long slick ponytail the draped sleekly over her shoulder.

Resting on her other shoulder, held up by one elegant thin hand, was a tiny, curled up baby.

Gracie had a lovely little round head with a silly little tuft of blonde hair. She slept peacefully on the reaper’s shoulder, curled up into a tiny little ball, her toes curled in and her little fists tucked under her chin, by her mouth, her elbows pulled into her tummy.

Castiel didn’t wait a second, he didn’t ask for permission, and he didn’t falter. Legs that had been weak and shaky minutes early found their strength and he strode right up to the reaper, his arms outstretched. He ignored the little huff of mockery and the uncaring roll of the reaper’s eyes as he took his baby from her.

There was no doubt that this little thing was his and Dean’s. Grace had Dean’s mouth and his eye shape. She had Castiel’s nose. With a shaking hand, Castiel ran his fingers over her skin, tracing her cheeks and her nose, inhaling sharply, his breath hitching when she flexed her toes and smacked her tiny mouth, nuzzling her face into his shoulder.

He couldn’t help it; his chin trembled and Castiel squeezed his eyes shut as he curled her up in his arms, pulling her little body close. He pressed his face into her little shoulder, nuzzling his nose against the soft, small ear and cheek. He cried silently as he rubbed her head gently, his fingertips dancing over the wispy, fluffy tufts of thin hair. She smelled so good. She rested so peacefully against him, making little mewing noises of contentment. Castiel, overcome with love and grief, whispered her name against her head, his lips brushing her fresh, clean skin gently.

He rubbed her tiny back and told her how much he loved her in weak whispers, in between sharp sniffles and shaking breaths. He told her in English, and then he explained to her in Enochian how much she was loved, how many people cared about her. In rushed whispers, because he didn’t know when Metatron and his reaper goon would take her away, he told her about Dean, about how her human father thought she was the sun and moon. He told her about how they’d put the stars in the sky for her. She was their angel.

He told her about Sam, her uncle. The boy with the demon blood who was supposed to be an abomination, but turned out to be the purest, kindest human he’d ever met. He told her that he was big like a moose, but was frightened of clowns. Castiel told his small daughter about her uncle’s gentle voice that would’ve given her good advice, and strong arms that would’ve hugged her when she would’ve wanted comfort. When her parents would’ve made mistakes or done something unfair, her uncle Sam would’ve been ready with the right thing to say and a shoulder to cry on.

“That’s rather beautiful,” Metatron commented, aware that he’d been entirely forgotten. “You and Dean make precious babies.”

Castiel looked up at Metatron, his eyes red and wet, roiling with emotion. “She’ll never get to live. You don’t get to talk about her. You--”

Metatron held up a hand and spoke over Castiel, who was overtaken with fresh anger. “I was very clear when I spoke to you seven months ago, Castiel; fall in love, make a baby. I told you to live life to the fullest and then come tell me your story. You’ve done two out of the three. Your work isn’t done yet. Your story isn’t over yet.”

Castiel shook his head. He held his tiny daughter closer, shielding her from the evil which sought to harm her. “I don’t understand.”

Metatron raised his hand into the air by his head, his middle finger and thumb pressed together. He winked and said quietly, his voice full of mischief, “I’ll come for her one day.”

“When?” Cas growled.

Metatron grinned, then he shrugged. “When I need her. When she’s ready.”

“I promise, Metatron, you’ll be dead by then,” Castiel whispered thickly, his eyes dark as they fixed themselves to Metatron’s smarmy face. “I will revel in personally snapping your neck. And if I fail, Dean will succeed.”

The little simper from Metatron made his blood boil.

“I’m excited to see you both try. But for now, goodbye, Castiel.” He paused to wink and wiggle his fingers at the baby. “See you very soon, Gracie-girl.”

Metatron snapped his fingers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :O
> 
> Weeeell? What do you think?
> 
> We've got one more chapter and an epilogue to go!


	17. The Stars

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...what is happening? Could it be?
> 
> AM I POSTING THE REST OF THE FIC TONIGHT!?
> 
> (Maaaaaaybe.)

Dean pushed open the door.

He cleared his throat and brushed tears from his cheeks with a rough brush of his hand as he flicked on the light. 

The room smelled vaguely of paint, although the walls were dry by now. Clear plastic tarps covered the furniture and the floors. On top of the dresser was a box of night-lights and the lids for the light switches.

After carefully folding the t-shirt in his hands and setting it aside, Dean began tearing the plastic off the furniture and throwing it out into the hall. He took his time shifting the crib around into the proper place, and picking up the tarp from the floor.

Dean screwed on the covers for the light switches and plugged in the nightlights. He pushed the furniture up against the walls and fastened the mobile above the crib, giving it a little spin. 

Dean watched the mobile turn, the feathers and tiny iridescent stars swaying slowly. For a moment, he felt like he couldn’t breathe.

He forced himself to step away from it and turn back around. He plugged in the small black lamp Sam had bought on eBay and, after turning off the room lights, flicked the ON switch.

On unsteady legs, Dean walked into the middle of the room and looked up at the stars. The lamp cast hundreds of little stars across the ceiling, twinkling and rotating around the room. The cheap little green-y white stars he’d glued onto the ceiling shone too, bright against the dark night sky.

He couldn’t help it. Dean watched the stars twinkle in the sky that he and Cas, and Sam too, had put in the sky for Gracie. He put a hand over his mouth as it trembled, and he held back a sob as fresh waves of tears ran down his face.

He watched the stars twinkle in their sky for longer than he cared to think about, his fingers pressed against his lips. After a while, he inhaled deeply and smelled the linen, lemon, and cinnamon he missed so much. Feeling a subtle breeze and hearing a little flutter of tiny wings, Dean’s eyes slid closed and he inhaled, feeling his throat tighten and his hands begin to shake. His stomach ached from the grief. He heard Castiel’s footsteps behind him, he felt his presence in the room and Dean gave a little hiccup in between tears that tumbled over his lashes, onto his cheeks and down his face. He was going insane…but Dean hardly cared.

“Dean.”

Dean’s other hand came up and he pressed it against his mouth, his breath picking up, his shoulders shaking as he sobbed into his hands. It was like Cas was right there. He knew, after thirty years of hunting ghosts, that he should have been on alert, he should have reacted differently, but he didn’t move. He just wanted to hear Cas so badly, to feel him in the room, to smell his scent. He missed him so much.

“ _Dean_ ,” Cas’ voice said again, his voice soft but his tone insistent. Dean shut his eyes tighter, dreading opening them and seeing no one there. 

But then a hand he knew so well came up around his wrists and tugged at his hands, pulling them from his face. Dean’s eyes snapped open and he gasped.

“Cas?”

Cas, all male with stubble and messy hair, and tired, tired eyes, smiled at him with a watery, shaking smile. His shirt was wrinkled and untucked, and kinda unbuttoned at the top like someone had dressed him in a rush. He was in his dress pants and shoes, and around his loose blue tie was the tiniest fist Dean had ever seen in person.

“Hello, Dean,” Cas whispered with a small shrug. Against his shoulder, Gracie slept peacefully, her thumb in her mouth, her face half-buried in Cas’ neck. She was so small Cas could hold her one handed, and the other he used to support her back spanned her entire little body.

“Oh my God,” Dean wept, pressing his hand back against his eyes, still not believing what he was seeing. He was being driven mad. It had been a mistake to come in here, to turn on the lights and finish Grace’s room as if she’d ever come home.

“No,” Cas replied, the word coming out as a little hiccuping sob as well, “not God. It was Metatron, he brought us back.”

Dean’s hand fell from his eyes and his heart slammed against his chest. Eyes flickering between Cas’ face and the little baby in his hands, Dean felt the fight leave him. 

“Metatron?” Dean breathed, shaking his head. 

“He brought me back,” Cas repeated. “He brought Grace back. He… Dean, he planned all of this. He planned for us to have Grace. He wanted another nephilim in existence. He wants to use her for a spell. I-I don’t know when. But someday--”

Holy shit. Dean’s eyes went wide, watching Cas’s face as he spoke. It was really him. 

Dean reached out and ran his fingers over Cas’ lips, his eyes wide. He touched, shakily, every bit of skin he could. Brow, cheeks, jaw. He dragged his fingers through his hair and down his neck. Cas let him, his eyes fluttering closed, his eyes and nose getting red, his mouth trembling with emotion.

“You’re real,” Dean whispered.

All Cas had to do was nod before Dean stepped into his space and crushed their lips together, kissing Cas with everything he had. His fingers tangled in his hair and he pressed their foreheads together to catch his breath.

“You’re back?” Dean asked hopefully, his voice tight. “For real? For how long?”

Cas’ laugh rumbled against Dean’s chest and puffed warmly across his lips. “I can’t say for sure. But I hope to stay until I die of old age.”

Pulling away from Cas, Dean reached out with shaking hands and took his daughter, pulling her into his arms, holding her close to him, his fingers brushing over her head.

“She’s so little,” Dean whispered, both amazed and worried.

Cas reached out and dragged the back of his finger over Gracie’s cheek. He smiled. “Yes, but her wings are big. Big and black with streaks of green and blue.”

Dean stared at Cas in awe. “You can see them?”

Cas brushed a knuckle over Dean’s chin and smiled. “Yes. And so can you.”

With hesitation, Dean pulled his gaze from Cas and looked down at the tiny girl held against his chest. She shifted in his palm and smushed her face into his shirt, looking deep in sleep. 

“Show me your wings, Gracie,” Dean whispered, dragging his thumb down her back. Nothing happened initially, so in a quieter whisper, he leaned close to her ear and added, “I’ll give you five bucks.”

Her parents broke into fits of amazed laughter as the outline of two wings materialized in the air from her smooth little back, tall and wispy, swaying behind her as she breathed. To Dean, they appeared transparent, but were beautiful regardless, sparkling and shimmering in iridescent blue and green. Dean spotted some purple and magenta glimmers as she sighed. 

“They look like our sky,” Dean whispered, beaming as Cas met his eye and flashed him a gorgeous smile. 

“They do,” Cas agreed, turning his face up to look at the galaxy above them. “It’s beautiful, Dean. It’s perfect.”

Dean gazed at Cas, drinking him in, worshiping his features, his heart swelling at the very sight of the electric blue eyes shimmering under the moving starlights. 

“Yeah,” Dean agreed. “It is.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of you who've made it to the end; congratulations. You're truly awesome people and I adore you for sticking with this fic. It was so fun and challenging to write, and it was exactly what I needed after writing my DCBB.
> 
> I sincerely hope you enjoyed it and would love to hear your thoughts, feedback, etc. in a comment.
> 
> The epilogue will follow very shortly. :) It's currently getting love from the ever lovely beta goddess, MalMuses. <3


	18. Epilogue: Little Wings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, folks, this is it. 
> 
> Enjoy. :)
> 
> Beta edit by the flawless and amazing MalMuses.

Sam jogged down the damp hill from the bunker, his puffs of breath curling into the air in the early Fall morning. He jogged past run-down manufacturing lots along the side of the service road. After a solid fifteen minutes, he cut through a man-made trail through a forest, his running shoes crunching over dead orange, brown, and red leaves. 

The word ‘content’ didn’t even begin to cover how Sam felt in that moment. He felt calmness, happiness. He felt peace. Yes, the demons were still hunting them, and the angels still walked the earth, all pissy and havoc-wreaking, but other than big-baddies being big and bad, Sam had no complaints.

He ran off of the trail, appearing on a suburban street lined with small, older looking houses. It wasn’t the cutest neighbourhood in the city and it was definitely a low-income to lower-middle class area. A few houses looked kind of abandoned, but the ones that had people in them were fairly well kept, with one or two cars in the driveway and kids’ bicycles piled up against the siding.

Sam slowed his jog as he walked by a bunch of kids lined up, waiting to crowd onto a yellow school bus. He caught his breath as he walked down the street, tugging his earphones from his ears and rolling them around his fingers. He tucked them into his pocket and turned off the music before he walked up the driveway of a small older house. 

The house was plain, with a brown roof and faded white siding, and barely enough front yard to brag about. The paint needed a new coat and the roof could afford to get done, but the driveway was long, extending past the house and stopping at a small shed. The windows were big, there was a decently sized backyard, and the old porch was spacious enough to house a porch-swing.

Sam hopped up the front steps and tugged open the screen door, leaning it on his hip while he fished out his keys. The silver key slid into the lock and he pushed open the door, inhaling the smell of a cozy home—a mix of old pine and laundry and cardboard. 

Quietly as he could, Sam toed off his shoes and threw them on top of a pile of half-emptied cardboard boxes, out of the way so that no one would trip over them in the small entrance. He padded through the hallway, pausing to look into the cramped but comfy living room. 

Cas was sleeping on his back on one of the second-hand couches he and Dean had bought, a blanket half on him, half-puddled onto the floor. The part that was on him also sheltered the bottom half of a very sleepy looking little baby wearing a tiny blue winged onesie. Cas’ hand, which rested gently on her back, covered nearly half of her entire body. He looked so exhausted, so Sam left them there, merely smiling and making his way to the kitchen that took up the entire back of the small house. 

While everything else in the house was rather cramped and small, the kitchen was decently spacious, even if slightly outdated. It reminded Sam of Jess’ cottage, where he’d spent spring break in second year. The counter space was limited and the appliances needed updating, but he knew Dean had plans to do some upgrading when he and Cas weren’t bone-tired and they had more money—real money.

They’d bought the house in the same way they’d bought everything else in their lives; using stolen credit cards and shady business dealings. Thankfully, every single one of their hunter friends had been more than happy to take out a few fake credit cards and withdraw their maximum cash limit in one swoop. The pooled funds ended up being enough for a down payment. “What’s family for?” each of them said as they handed over the cash. Irv had even given Cas and Dean his daughter’s hand-me-down baby things that had been long collecting dust in his storage unit.

The small issue of monthly mortgage payments was easily taken care of by faking Dean’s name onto the payroll of a nearby hunter’s small business. Additionally, the profits of sales from ancient (and not-haunted) artifacts—courtesy of the Men of Letter’s storage room—were currently fluffing up Cas and Dean’s savings accounts.

The setup of this little domestic life had required a lot of falsification of records and milking of hunter connections up high on the food chain. Grace’s birth records, social insurance number, and other federal documents had come at a hefty price—some hunter friends were more generous than others, but it needed to be done. Cas and Dean—both not entirely cleared from the FBI Wanted List—had entirely new identities and paperwork to match. 

Sam hadn’t let them live down their new names for an entire week. Dee and Casper Hunter sounded like a pair of gay lumberjacks. Thankfully for Dean and Cas, they basically were, so that joke was more funny than offensive.

Dean and Cas had only been in the house for three days, and it was evident by the barricades and walls of cardboard boxes all over the house, some labeled in Dean’s scribbly writing, others in Cas’ neat but nearly microscopic cursive. It was clear which ones Cas had labeled, because Sam had to go back and write bigger, so that they didn’t require the help of a magnifying glass to put things away.

Sam shoved his arm into one of the top boxes, pulling out a frying pan carefully. 

It was 7 am, and while he’d been awake for two hours now, he knew Dean and Cas barely slept at all anymore with Gracie frequently waking them up at weird hours of the night. For a baby that was supposed to be kind of angelic, she sure screeched like a hell demon. Sam loved her with all of his heart, more than he’d ever loved anything other than his brother (and now Cas). Nonetheless, when Cas and Dean had said they’d bought a house and were moving, he was so happy that he’d never have to spend another night down the hall from Gracie’s banshee shrieking.

Quietly, humming to a song in his head, Sam made breakfast and coffee, also putting away kitchen items from boxes as he waited for the eggs to cook. 

He didn’t live with them, but he’d spent the past few weeks with Dean and Cas alternatively in the house, painting the common areas, moving in furniture, and lugging in boxes. He even took some time watching over Gracie as she slept so his brother and his boyfriend could ‘just fucking sleep for Christ’s sake’ as Dean put it.

Sam turned off the stove and reached up to grab plates from one of the cupboards. The sound of itty-bitty wings flapping behind him made him pause. 

A fond smile curled on his lips and Sam pulled the plates down, turning around slowly. Unlike in his dreams, Sam didn’t abruptly wake up when he tried to follow the noise. 

Gracie, still sleeping soundly, was curled into a small ball on her stomach, her floppy fabric wings spread across her back. Her diapered bum was in the air and her tiny thumb was in her mouth, those chubby cheeks squished against the countertop, where she’d decided to sleep-fly or rather, sleep-land.

Sam grinned and shook his head, reaching forward gently to run his fingers over her fine wisps of blonde hair. She was so zonked out that his soft caresses didn’t wake her. With a little huff of affectionate laughter, Sam turned back around and finished what he was doing, setting the table around her. 

In typical, terrible uncle style, he pulled out his phone and took a picture of the set table, with Grace sleeping in the middle, and sent it to Dean.

“Mmmm, babies for breakfast,” he texted.

Sam hadn’t even finished chuckling before there was a soft grunt and then a gasp, followed by a series of thuds that sounded suspiciously like Cas falling off the couch. He looked up in time to see Cas half-slide, half-stumble like a drunk madman into the kitchen. His blue eyes were wide and disoriented, his hair sticking up all funny on one side.

“Where’s… Sam, what... Um, um—” Cas raised a hand to his head, rubbing at his forehead and squeezing his eyes shut. “Oh, it’s bright in here. I—I lost Gracie. S-She… Where’d she go? She was just there! I thought she fell. I...”

Sam’s grin widened as Cas spotted his daughter and he leaned on the wall, looking like ten thousand years of stress were lifted off his shoulders.

“Oh. Thank God.”

Sam nodded, reaching over a table setting to pick up the tiny bundle of heavenly baby. “Yup,” he said quietly, but with a tone tinged with amusement, “she sleep-flew again.”

“I love her for using her wings,” Cas said with a groan, “but I don’t believe it’ll ever stop scaring me half to death.”

Sam walked around the table, passing the soft little bundle of warm baby to Cas, who held her close, rubbing his nose against her head and whispering Enochian to her. She mewed and settled against his chest, snuggling her face into his neck.

“You little fucking asshole!” Dean’s voice rung out from the hallway. He trudged into the kitchen, holding up his phone, the picture of his daughter sleeping on the dinner table bright on his screen. “That’s not funny, Sam. She’s a fucking baby.”

“You can’t say ‘fuck’ about babies,” Sam retorted with a smirk as he deposited bacon on each plate. 

Dean waved him off. “She can’t hear me.” Then Dean walked up to his sleeping baby daughter and whispered, “I fucking love you, my tiny shrieking girl. My tiny little miracle who keeps me up all fucking night, but is so cute that—”

Cas leaned down close to Dean’s face, and with a tight smile, he said quietly and very carefully, “If you wake her up after I spent an hour and a half putting her to sleep, you’ll be a tiny shrieking girl too.”

Sam snorted as Dean gave Cas a shit-eating grin and a quick peck on the lips, before walking over to Sam and clapping him on the shoulder. Dean’s gaze swept over the spread on the kitchen table with wide, happy eyes.

“Dude, please always break into my house to make me breakfast. I’m so freakin’ tired. If you weren’t here, I was just gonna put peanut butter on a rice cracker and call it a day.”

Even Cas chuckled as the Winchesters exchanged looks and broke into chortles at Dean’s expense. With one hand occupied with a baby, Cas’ other hand reached forward and plucked a hearty piece of bacon from the spread, taking a big bite out of it and moaning, “I _love_ bacon.”

“Yeah,” Sam laughed, sliding onto a stool and scraping pieces of fruit down onto his plate with a fork. “I figure you two would be tired, if the one-AM, and two-AM, and four-AM texts were any indication. So, I figure I’d _break in—”_ Sam rolled his eyes, shooting a bitch-face at Dean, “with the key you gave me, to help out a bit.”

Dean shoved an obscene amount of egg into his mouth and said around it, “I love you, bitch”

Sam felt warmth spread through his chest, but he rolled his eyes and laughed, “Love you too, jerk.”

Ever since Cas and Grace had come back, the vibe changed for the Winchesters. The bonds between Dean and Cas strengthened, Sam’s relationship with Cas got closer, and there were no shortages of ‘I love you’s from Dean for everyone. It seemed that losing a child and partner, even if it was for a few hours, affected Dean more deeply than almost any other trauma he’d ever gone through. He was still Dean, and Cas was still Cas, but something changed between them and it affected everyone around them. 

It was sappy, but there was love everywhere around them. Smiles that he’d never seen on Cas’ face were there almost all the time, no matter how tired or how early it was. Dean never lost that spark of excitement and happiness in his eyes now. It was hands-down the weirdest thing Sam had ever seen, after a lifetime of knowing Dean to be clinically depressed and reaching for the bottle to drown his sorrows. Frankly, Sam didn’t even recall seeing a single bottle of alcohol in any of the boxes they’d lugged over to this new house.

Granted, not all the grass was green in this domestic paradise. Abaddon had somehow managed to smoke her way out of a fiery death a month and a half ago, unbeknownst to them. They’d found out she was alive when she’d sent a team of demons to carve “long live the queen” into Baby’s newly repaired hood. 

So the cute little house in this suburban street came with some heavy-duty angel and demon proofing. 

Dean and Cas were fiercely protective of their child, almost wary to leave the house with her because of the threat from both Heaven and Hell, who were still trying to take her from them. Cas got a panicked look in his eye whenever she wasn’t in the same room as him, even if Dean had only taken her away to be changed or bathed. 

Their lives weren’t perfect. But the Impala had her very own driveway to rest on, they had a backyard for Gracie to play in when she was older, and a porch where Cas sat with Gracie sometimes, bundled up, watching kids play on the street. Dean had a shed out back with tools to work on his car with, and a rack to store all their weapons. Sam had a key so he could stop in on them almost daily, and with three fiercely protective men watching over her, Gracie had her entire life to live, safe and as close to apple-pie as they could make it for her.

“At least she flew onto the table this time,” Dean said around some bacon, spearing himself another egg. “Yesterday she decided that she’d sleep in a box of blankets in the living room. Cas woke up and freaked the fuck out when he couldn’t find her.”

While Dean chuckled, Cas exhaled with a woosh, though his eyes did twinkle with amusement as he looked up at Sam, his eyes big. With a small waiver of laughter in his voice, Cas admitted, “I cried, Sam.”

Dean pressed the back of his wrist to his mouth, trying to not laugh too hard. “Like, full on tears and snot. He’d left one of the windows open and he fully thought she’d flown out of it. He was like, inconsolable.”

With Castiel seemingly amused at his own expense, his shoulders shaking a bit as he stifled his laugh with a napkin, Sam took that as permission to groan and laugh too. “Aw, Cas. _No_.”

“I was heartbroken,” Cas explained, still smiling crookedly, “I thought I’d carried her to full gestation, died in an explosion of grace for her, and then _lost her out the window_.”

“Classic Winchesters,” Dean snorted, reaching over to rub his baby’s back. “Dying in the stupidest ways ever. Hey, Sam, remember when a piano fell on me?”

Sam threw a potato at his brother. “That was not funny, Dean. Not for me, at least.”

Dean winked at Cas, shrugging. “It was pretty funny.”

Cas beamed at Dean, and Sam found himself being ignored as they made eyes at each other. Not full-on goo-goo eyes, but it was as sappy as Dean and Cas got, which really meant they either eye-fucked across the table or smiled all happily like big goofs. 

Sam preoccupied himself with smiling all big and waving his fork at Gracie instead, who yawned against Cas’ neck and blinked a few times, waking up. Her coordination was basically zero, so her little hands flopped around lazily and her itty-bitty fingers curled around Cas’ shirt after rubbing her own face like a small drunk person.

Once fully opened, her bright greeny-blue eyes were fixed on Sam like he was fascinating. 

A tiny smile appeared on her lips. 

“Oh, it’s all smiles for your big dumb uncle, but all I get is poop down your back and big drooly face-kisses, huh?” Dean asked, noticing she’d woken up. He grinned and rubbed her cheek with his knuckle, before pulling back and shrugging, tucking into his meal. “Whatever, as long as you’re not crying.”

Cas curled his arm around her tighter, nuzzling her as he popped a potato in his mouth. Sam tore his eyes away from his niece, who was basically the most perfect baby in the world, and caught Cas’ eye.

Cas winked at Sam. “I spent an hour and a half putting her to sleep about forty minutes ago, Sam. Do you know what that means?”

Sam sighed. “It means Uncle Sam gets to put her back to sleep now, right?”

Dean and Cas nodded, and said in tandem, “Bingo.”

Sam rolled his eyes and slid off his chair. “‘ _Bingo_ ’? Cas, stop hanging out with Dean, he’s a bad influence.”

As Sam carefully took Grace from Cas, Cas murmured, “As long as he doesn’t get me pregnant again, he can be any kind of influence he wants.”

Dean laughed loudly, throwing his head back and dropping his fork, So loudly, in fact, that Gracie shrieked in Sam’s ear shrilly. Sam winched, unsure if the demons in Hell hadn’t heard her.

“I hate you, jerk,” Sam yelled back as he headed to her nursery upstairs.

Dean and Cas’ laughter could be heard from the second storey, even over their daughter’s cries.

“Love you, bitch!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How'd you like it!? :D Thank you for sticking around, I hope all the pain and suffering was worth it in the end. Look at these cuties and their domestic AF little life!
> 
> If you'd like to follow my writing, please subscribe to me here on AO3 or follow my Tumblr (jscribbles-fanfic) where I post my stuff sometimes. :) I'll be participating in a few bangs over the next year (and even co-moderating the SPN Movie Big Bang with MalMuses and amandacanzo) so please keep an eye out for those!


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